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TRAVELS 



IRISH GENTLEMAN 



SEARCH OF A RELIGION; 



NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 



By THOMAS MOORE, Esq. 

AUTHOR OP "CAPTAIN ROCK'S MEMOIRS," ETC. ETC, 




BALTIMORE: 
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. MURPHY & CO. 

METROPOLITAN PRESS, 
NO. 182 MARKET STREET. 

PITTSBURG: GEORGE QUIGLEY. 

SOLD BY ALL THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



L 



64* 



TO THE 

PEOPLE OF IRELAND, 

THIS DEFENCE 

OF THEIR 

ANCIENT, NATIONAL FAITH, 

IS INSCRIBED, 

BY THEIR DEVOTED SERVANT, 
THE EDITOR OF " CAPTAIN ROCk's MEMOIRS." 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. page 

Soliloquy up two pair of stairs. — Motives for embracing Protestantism- 
Providential accident. — Anti-popery Catechism. — Broadside of Epi- 
thets. — Final resolution, 9 

CHAPTER II. 

Sir Godfrey Kncller and St. Peter. — Varieties of Protestantism. — Re- 
solved to choose the best. — Adieu to Popish Abominations, . .11 

CHAPTER III. 

Begin with the First Century. — Pope St. Clement. — St. Ignatius. — Real 
Presence. — Heresy of the Docetae. — Tradition. — Relics of Saints, . 13 

CHAPTER IV. 

Visions of Hermas. — Weekly Fasting. — Good Works. — Rector of 
Ballymudragget. — Rector no Faster. — Comparison between the Rec- 
tor and Hermas, < .16 

CHAPTER V. 

Second Century. — St. Justin the Martyr. — Transubstantiation. — St. 
Irenaeus. — Papal Supremacy.— Sacrifice of the Mass. — Unwritten 
Tradition.— Old Man of the Sea, 19 

CHAPTER VI. 

Making the sign of the Cross. — Tertullian. — Veneration of Images. — 
Prayers for the Dead.-Determination to find Protestantism somewhere, 23 

CHAPTER VII. 

Great dearth of Protestantism. — Try Third and Fourth Centuries. — St. 
Cyprian. — Origen. — Primacy of St. Peter and the Pope. — St. Jerome. 
—List of Popish abominations, 25 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Invocati®n of the Virgin. — Gospel of the Infancy, &c. — Louis XI. — 
Bonaventura. — St. Ambrose, St. Basil, and Doctor Doyle, . . 32 

CHAPTER IX. 

Piayers for the dead. — Purgatory. — Penitential discipline. — Confession. 
— Origen. — St. Ambrose. — Apostrophe to the Shade of Father O'H * * 35 

CHAPTER X. 

The Eucharist. — A glimpse of Protestantism. — Type, Figure, Sign, 
&c. — Glimpse lost again. — St. Cyril of Jerusalem. — St. Cyprian. — 
St. Jerom. — St. Chrysostom. — Tertullian, 33 



CONTENTS. 



V 



CHAPTER XI. page 

Discipline of the Secret. — Concealment of the Doctrine of the Real 
Presence. — St. Paul.— St. Clement of Alexandria. — Apostolical Con- 
stitutions. — System of secresy, when most observed, . . .42 

CHAPTER XII. 

Doctrine of the Trinity. — St. Justin. — Irenaeus. — Apparent heterodoxy 
of the Fathers of the Third Century. — Accounted for by the Disci- 
pline of the Secret. — Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, &c, . . 44 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Doctrine of the Incarnation. — Importance attached to it by Christ him- 
self. — John, vi. — Ignatius. — Connexion between the Incarnation and 
the Real Presence. — Concealment of the latter doctrine by the Fathers. 
— Proofs of this concealment, . . . * . . . .50 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Concealment of the Doctrine of the Eucharist. — Proofs. — Calumnies on 
the Christians. — Protestant view of this Sacrament — not that taken 
by the earl) Christians, 54 

CHAPTER XV. 

Concealment of the Eucharist — most strict in the Third Century. — St. 
Cyprian — his timidity — favorite Saint of the Protestants. — Alleged 
proofs against Transubstantiation. — Theodoret. — Gelasius. — Believ- 
ers in the Catholic Doctrine of the Eucharist, Erasmus, Pascal, Sir 
Thomas More, Fenelon, Leibnitz, &c, 57 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Relaxation of the Discipline of the Secret, on the subject of the Trinity. 
— Doctrine of the Real Presence still concealed. — The Eucharists of 
the Heretics. — The Artoturites, Hydroparastatae, &c. — St. Augus- 
tin a strict observer of the Secret. — Similar fate of Transubstantiation 
and the Trinity, 63 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Fathers of the Fourth Century. — Proofs of their doctrine respecting the 
Eucharist. — Ancient Liturgies, ....... 67 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Visit to T d-street Chapel. — Antiquity of the observances of the 

Mass. — Lights, Incense, Holy Water, &c. — Craw-thumpers. — St. 
Augustin a Craw-thumper. — Imitations of Paganism in the early 
Church, 74 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Ruminations. — Unity of the Catholic Church. — History of St. Peter's 
Chair. — Means of preserving Unity. — Irenaeus. — Hilary. — Indefecta- 
bility of the one Church, . .78 

CHAPTER XX. 

A Dream. — Scene, a Catholic Church — time, the third century. — 
Angel of Hermas. — High Mass. — Scene shifts to Ballymudragget — 
Rector's Sermorv — Amen Chorus, . . ... 81 

1* 



vi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXL pagb 

Search after Protestantism suspended. — Despair of finding it among the 
Orthodox. — Resolve to try the Heretics. — Dead Sea of Learning. — 
Balance of Agreeableness between Fathers and Heretics, . . 85 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The Capharnaites the first Protestants. — Discourse of our Saviour at 
Capernaum — its true import. — Confirmatory of the Catholic doctrine 
of the Eucharist, 88 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Docetae, the earliest heretics. — Denial of the Real Presence. — 
Simon Magus and his Mistress. — Simon a Protestant. — Delight at 
the discovery. — The Ebionites.— The Elcesaites, . . . .92 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Scriptural learning of the Gnostics — their theories. — Account of the 
system of the Valentinians. — Celestial Family. — Sophia— her daugh- 
ter. — Birth of the Demiurge. — Bardesanes, 96 

CHAPTER XXV. 

The Gnostics, believers in Two Gods. — The Creator and the Unknown 
Father. — Their charges against the Jehovah of the Jews. — Marcion — 
his Antitheses. — Apelles. — Belief in Two Saviours. — Hatred of the 
Jewish Code. — Ophites. — Marriage of Jesus with Sophia Achamoth, 99 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Catalogue of Heresies. — TheMarcosians, Melchisedecians, Montanists, 
&c. — Why noticed. — Clemens Alexandrinus inclined to Gnosticism. 
-Tertullian, a Montanist. — St. Augustin, a Manichaean. . . 105 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Discovery, at last, of Protestantism among the Gnostics. — Simon Ma- 
gus the author of Calvinism. — Calvinistic doctrines held by the Valen- 
tinians, Basilidians, Manichaeans, &c. . 108 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Another search for Protestantism among the orthodox as unsuccessful 
as the former. — Fathers the very reverse of Calvinists. — Proofs. — St. 
Ignatius, St. Justin, &c. — Acknowledged by Protestants themselves, 111 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Return to Heretics. — Find Protestantism in abundance. — Novatians, 
Agnoetae, Donatists, &c. — Aerius, the first Presbyterian. — Accusa- 
tions of Idolatry against the Catholics. — Brought forward by the 
Pagans, as now by the Protestants. — Conclusion of the Chapter, . 114 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Brief recapitulation. — Secret out, at last. — Love affair. — Walks by the 
river. — -" Knowing the Lord.*' — Cupid and Calvin, .... 119 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

Rector of Ballymudragget. — New form of shovel. — Tender scene in the 
shrubbery. — Moment of bewilderment. — Catholic Emancipation Bill 
carried. — Correspondence with Miss * * 123 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXXIT. page 

Miss * *'s knowledge of the Fathers. — Translation for her Album from 
St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory, and St. Jerome. — Tender 
love-poem from St. Basil, 126 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Difficulties of my present position. — Lord Farnham's Protestants. — Bal- 
linasloe Christians. — Pious letter from Miss * *. — Suggests that 1 
should go to Germany. — Resolution to take her advice, . . . 130 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

The Apostolic antiquity of the Catholic doctrines allowed by Protestants 
themselves. — Proofs — from the writings of the Reformers, Luther, 
Melancthon, &c. — from later Protestants, Casaubon, Scaliger, &c. — 
from Socinus and Gibbon, 133 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

French Calvinists. — The Fathers held in contempt by the English Cal- 
vinists. — Policy of the Church of England Divines. — Bishop Jewel. 
— Dr. Waterland, 13S 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Pretended reverence of the English divines for the Fathers unmasked. — 
Dr. Whitby's attack on the Fathers : followed by Middleton. — Early 
Christians proved by Middleton to have been Papists. — Reflections. — 
Departure for Hamburgh, 141 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Hamburgh. — Hagedorn. — Klopstock and his wife Meta. — Miss Anna 
Maria a Schurman, and her lover Labadie. — Account ol them for the 
Tract Society. — Forwarded through the hands of Miss * * . 146 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Blasphemous doctrine of Labadie — held also by Luther, Beza, &c. — 
Reflections. — Choice of University. — Gottingen. — Introduced to Pro- 
fessor Scratchenbach. — Commence a course of lectures on Protes- 
tantism, 150 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

First Lecture of Professor Scratchenbach. — Heathen philosophers. — 
Rationalism among the Heretics. — Marcion, Arius, Nestonus, &c, 
all Rationalists. — The Dark Ages. — Revival of Learning. — Luther, 155 

CHAPTER XL. 

Reflections on the Professor's Lecture. — Commence Second Lecture. — 
Luther. — His qualifications for the office of Reformer, . . . 16 1 

CHAPTER XLI. 

Lecture continued. — Doctrines of Luther. — Consubstantiation. — Justi- 
fication by Faith alone. — Slavery of the Will. — Ubiquity of Christ's 
body, 164 

CHAPTER XLII. 

Lecture continued. — Doctrines of Calvin and Zwingli compared with 
those of Luther. — Luther's intolerance — how far entitled to be called 
a Rationalist — Summary of his character, as a Reformer, . .170 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XLIII. page 

Lecture continued : — the Reformer, Zwingli — superior to all the others — 
his doctrine on the Lord's Supper and Baptism — original author of 
Rationalism — followed by Socinus. — Analogy between Transubstan- 
tiation and the Trinity, 1 76 

CHAPTER XLIV, 

Lecture continued. — Antitrinitarian doctrines among the Reformers. — 
Valentinus Gentilis. — Socinianism — its weak points. — Progress of 
A.ntitrinitarianism — the Holy Spirit, not a Person, but an attribute, . 180 

CHAPTER XLV. 

Lecture continued. — Effects of the rationalizing mode of interpretation 
as exhibited in Germany. — Contrasts between past and present state 
of Protestantism. — Inspiration of the Scriptures rejected. — Authen- 
ticity of books of the Old and New Testament questioned, &c. &c. . 186 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

Reflections. — Letter from Miss * *. — Marriages of the Reformers. — 
CEcolampadius. — Bucer. — Calvin and his Ideletta. — Luther and his 
Catharine de Bore. — Their Marriage Supper. — Hypocrisy of the Re- 
formers. — Challenge at the Black Bear. — The War of the Sacrament, 195 

CHAPTER XL VII. 

Blasphemies of the Rationalists. — Sources of infidelity in Germany. — 
Absurdity of some of the Lutheran doctrines. — Impiety of those of 
Calvin. — Contempt for the authority of the Fathers. — Doctor Dam- 
man. — Decline of Calvinism, 203 

CHAPTER XLVIIL 

Rise of infidel opinions in Europe, soon after the Synod of Dort. — Lord 
Herbert, Hobbes, Spinoza. — Beginnings of Rationalism among Cal- 
vinists. — Bekker, Peyrere, Meyer. — Lutheran Church continued free 
from infidelity much longer than the Calvinian, . . . .210 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

Return to England.— Inquiry into the history of English Protestantism. 
— Its close similarity to the history of German Protestantism. — Sel- 
fishness and hypocrisy of the first Reformers in both countries. — 
Variations of creed. — Persecutions and burnings. — Recantations of 
Cranmer, Latimer, &c. — Effects of the Reformation in demoralizing 
the people. — Proofs from German and English writers, . . . 214 

CHAPTER L. 

Parallel between the Protestantism of Germany and of England con- 
tinued. — Infidel writers. — Sceptical English Divines — South, Sher- 
lock, and Burnett. — Extraordinary work of the latter. — Socinianism 
of Hoadly, Balguy, Hey, &c. — Closing stage of the Parallel. — Tes- 
timonies to the increasing irreUgion of England, , . . .227 

CHAPTER LI. 

Return to Ireland. — Visit to Townsend-street Chapel. — Uncerta inty and 
unsafely of the Scriptures, as a sole rule of faith: — Proofs. — Authority 
of fhe Church. — Faith or Reason. — Catholic or Deist. — Final resolu- 
tion, 236 

Notes. . 247 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



CHAPTER I. 

Soliloquy up two pair of stairs. — Motives for embracing Protestantism. — 
Providential accident. — Anti-popery Catechism. — Broadside of Epithets. 
— Final resolution. 

It was on the evening of the 16th day of April, 1829, — the 
very day on which the memorable news reached Dublin of the 
Royal Assent having been given to the Catholic Relief Bill,— 
that, as I was sitting alone in my chambers, up two pair of stairs, 
Trinity College, being myself one of the everlasting " Seven 
Millions" thus liberated, I started suddenly, after a few moments' 
reverie, from my chair, and taking a stride across the room, as 
if to make trial of a pair of emancipated legs, exclaimed, " Thank 
God ! I may now, if I like, turn Protestant." 

The reader will see, at once, in this short speech, the entire 
course of my thoughts at that moment of exultation. I found 
myself free, not only from the penalties attached to being a 
Catholic, but from the point of honor which had till then de- 
barred me from being any thing else. Not that I had, indeed, 
ever much paused to consider in what the faith I professed 
differed from others. I was as yet young, — but just entered 
into my twenty -first year. The relations of my creed with this 
world had been of too stirring a nature to leave me much thought 
to bestow on its concernments with the next ; nor was I yet so 
much of the degenerate Greek in my tastes as to sit discussing 
what was the precise color of the light of Mount Thabor, when 
that " light of life," liberty, was itself to be struggled for. 

I had, therefore, little other notion of Protestants than as a 
set of gentlemanlike heretics, somewhat scanty in creed, but in 
all things else rich and prosperous, and governing Ireland, ac 
cording to their will and pleasure, by right of some Thirty-nine 
Articles, of which I had not yet clearly ascertained whether 
they wore Articles of War or of Religion. 

The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, though myself one 
of them, I could not help regarding as a race of obsolete and 



70 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



obstinate religionists, robbed of every thing but (what was, per 
haps, least worth preserving) their Creed, and justifying the 
charge brought against them of being unfit for freedom, by 
having so long and so unresistingly submitted to be slaves. Ir, 
short, I felt — as many other high-spirited young Papists must have 
felt before me — that I had been not only enslaved, but degraded 
by belonging to such a race ; and though, had adversity still 
frowned on our faith, I would have clung to it to the last, and 
died fighting for Transubstantiation and the Pope with the best, 
I was not sorry to be saved the doubtful glory of such martyr 
dom ; and much as I rejoiced at the release of my fellow-suf. 
ferers from thraldom, rejoiced still more at the prospect of my 
own release from them. 

While such was the state of my feelings with respect to the 
political bearings of my creed, I saw no reason, on regarding it 
in a religious point of view, to feel much more satisfied with it. 
The dark pictures I had seen so invariably drawn, in Protestant 
pamphlets and sermons, of the religious tenets of Popery, had 
sunk mortifyingly into my mind ; and when I heard eminent, 
learned, and, in the repute of the world, estimable men, repre- 
senting the faith which I had had the misfortune to inherit as a 
system of damnable idolatry, whose doctrines had not merely 
the tendency, but the prepense design, to encourage imposture, 
perjury, assassination, and all other monstrous crimes, I was 
already prepared, by the opinions which I had myself formed 
of my brother Papists, to be but too willing a recipient of such 
accusations against them from others. Though, as man and as 
citizen, I rose indignantly against these charges, yet, as Catholic, 
I quailed inwardly under the fear that they were but too true. 

In this state of mind it was that I had long looked forward 
to the great measure of Emancipation, both as the closing of 
that old, bitter, and hereditary contest in which the spiritual 
part of the question had been made subordinate to the temporal, 
and, more particularly, as a release for myself from that scru- 
pulous point of honor which had hitherto kept me wedded, " for 
better, for worse," to Popery. 

The reader has now been put in full possession of the meaning 
of that abrupt exclamation which, as I have said, burst from me 
on the evening of the 16th of April, in my room up two pair of 
stairs, Trinity College, — " Thank God ! I may now, if I like 
turn Protestant." No sooner had this pithy sentence broke from 
my lips than I resumed my seat and plunged again into reverie. 
The college clock was, I recollect, striking eight, at the time 
this absorption of my thinking faculties commenced, and the 
same orthodox clock had tolled the tenth hour before the ques- 
tion, " Shall I, or shall I not, turn Protestant ?" was in any fair 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



11 



train for decision. Even then, it was owing very much to an 
accident, which some good people would call providential, that 
Popery did not — for that evening, at least — maintain her ground. 
On the shelf of the book-case near me lay a few stray pamph- 
lets, towards which, in the midst of my meditations, I almost 
unconsciously put forth my hand, and taking the first that pre- 
sented itself, found that I had got hold of a small tract, in the 
form of a Catechism, against Popery, published near a century 
ago, and called " A Protestant's Resolution, showing his Reasons 
why he will not be a Papist, &c. &c." On opening the leaves 
of this tract, the first sentences that met my eyes were as fol- 
lows : — 

" Q. — What was there in the Romish Religion that occasioned 
Protestants to separate themselves from it 1 

"A. — In that it was a superstitious, idolatrous, damnable, 
bloody, traitorous, blind, blasphemous religion." 

This broadside of epithets at once settled the whole matter. 
What gentleman, indeed, thought I, could abide to remain longer 
in a faith to which, with any show of justice, such hard and 
indigestible terms could be applied 1 Accordingly, up sprung I, 
for the second time, from my now uneasy chair, and brandishing 
aloft my clenched hand, as if in defiance of the Abomination of 
the Seven Hills, exclaimed, as I again paced about my chamber, 
— with something of the ascendancy strut already perceptible, — 
" I will be a Protestant." 



CHAPTER II. 

Sir Godfrey Kneller and St. Peter. — Varieties of Protestantism. — Resolved 
to choose the best. — Adieu to Popish abominations. 

I was now pretty much in the situation of Sir Godfrey Kneller, 
in the strange dream attributed to him, when having arrived, as 
he thought, at the entrance of Heaven, he found St. Peter there, 
in his capacity of gate-keeper, inquiring the name and religion 
of the different candidates for admission that presented them, 
selves, and, still as each gave his answer, directing them to the 
seats allotted to their respective creeds. " And pray, sir," said 
the Saint, addressing Sir Godfrey in his turn, " what religion 
may you be of?" — " Why, truly, sir," said Sir Godfrey, " I am 
of no religion." — " Oh, then, sir," replied St. Peter, " you will 
be so good as to go in and take your seat where you please." 

In much the same independent state of creed did I find my 
self at this rrisis, — having before me the whole variegated field 
cf Protestantism, with power to choose on what part of its wide 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



3urface I should settle. But though thus free, and with " a charter 
like the wind, to blow where'er I pleased," — my position, on the 
whole, was hardly what could be called comfortable. It was 
like that of a transmigrating spirit in the critical interval be- 
tween its leaving one body and taking possession of another ; 
or rather like a certain ill-translated work, of which some wit 
has remarked that it had been taken out of one language without 
being put into any other. 

Though as ignorant, at that time of my life, on all matters 
of religion, as any young gentleman brought up at a University 
- — even when meant for holy orders — could well be, I had, by 
nature, very strong devotional feelings, and from childhood had 
knelt nightly to my prayers with a degree of trust in God's mercy 
and grace, at which a professor of the Five Points would have 
been not a little scandalized. It was, therefore, with perfect 
conscientiousness and sincerity that 1 now addressed myself to 
the task of choosing a new religion ; and having made up my 
mind that Protestantism was to be the creed of my choice, re- 
solved also that it should be Protestantism of the best and most 
approved description. 

But how was this to be managed ? In a sermon which I 
once heard preached by a Fellow of our University, there was 
an observation put strongly by the preacher which I now called 
to mind for my guidance in the inquiry I was about to institute. 
"In like manner (said the preacher) as streams are always 
clearest near their source, so the first ages of Christianity will 
be found to have been the purest." Taking this obvious posi- 
tion for granted, the deduction was of course evident that to the 
doctrines and practice of the early ages of the Church I must 
have recourse to find the true doctrines and practice of Protes. 
tantism ; — the changes which afterwards took place, as well in 
the tenets as the observances of Christians, having been, a§ the 
preacher told us, the cause of " that corrupt system of religion 
which has been entailed on the world under the odious name 
of Popery." To ascend, therefore, at once to that Aurora of 
our faith, and imbue myself thoroughly with the opinions and 
doctrines of those upon whom its light first shone, was, I could 
not doubt, the sole effectual mode of attaining the great object 1 
had in view, — that of making myself a Protestant, according to 
the purest and most orthodox pattern. 

To the classical branch of the course taught in our University, 
1 had devoted a great deal of attention. My acquaintance, 
therefore, with Latin and Greek, was sufficiently familiar to 
embolden me to enter on the study of the Fathers in their own 
languages ; while, besides the access which I was allowed, as 
graduate, to the library of our college, I had also, through an- 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



13 



other channel, all the best editions of those holy writers placed 
at my command. Of the Scriptures my knowledge had hitherto 
been scanty ; but the plan I now adopted, was to make my 
study of the sacred volume concurrent with this inquiry into the 
writings of its first expounders ; so that the text and the com- 
ment might, by such juxtaposition, shed light on each otlyor. 

Behold me, then, with a zeal whose sincerity at least deserved 
some success, sitting down, dictionary in hand, to my task of 
self-conversion ; having secured one great si3p towards the 
adoption of a new creed, in the feeling little short of contempt 
with which I looked back upon the old one. Bidding a glad, 
and, as I trusted, eternal adieu to the long catalogue of Popish 
abominations, to wit, Transubstantiation, Relics, Fastings, Pur- 
gatory, Invocation of Saints, &c. &c, — I opened my mind, a 
willing initiate, to those enlightening truths which were now, 
from a purer quarter of the heavens, to dawn upon me. 



CHAPTER III. 

Begin with the First Century. — Pope St. Clement. — St. Ignatius. — Real 
Presence. — Heresy of the Docetse. — Tradition. — Relics of Saints. 

There is, among those who consider the Catholic Church to 
have, in the course of time, fallen from its first purity, a con- 
siderable difference of opinion as to the period at which this 
apostacy commenced; some writers having been disposed to 
extend the golden period of the Church to as late a period as 
the seventh or eighth century,* while by others her virgin era 
is confined within far less liberal limits. \ My great object, 
however, being, as much as possible, " integros accedere fontes," 
I saw that the higher up, near the very source, I began my re- 
searches, the better ; and, accordingly, with the writings of those 

* One of those who allow the "beaux jours de 1'Eglise" (as he calls them) 
to have extended so far, was the celebrated Huguenot minister, Claude, — 
celebrated, among other things, for the signal defeat which he sustained from 
the learned authors of the Perpeluite de la Foi. Of this great champion of 
Protestantism, so lauded in his day, it is curious to see what was the private 
opinion entertained by one who lived in his society, and is known not to have 
been unfriendly to his sect or its cause : — "Cet homme-la (says Longueriie) 
£toit bon a gouverner chez Madame la Margchale de Schomberg, ou il reg- 
noit souverainement ; mais il n'6toit point savant. Parlez-moi, pour le 
savoir, d'Aubertin, de Daille\ de Blondel." 

According to the Book of Homilies, "the Christian Religion was, unto the 
time of Constantine, (A. D. 324,) most pure and indeed golden." 

| Priestley, for instance, to suit his purpose, considers the period till the 
death of Adrian, (A D. 138,) as comprising the pure and virgin age of the 
Church. 

2 



14 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



five holy men who are distinguished by the title of Apostolical 
Fathers, as having all of them conversed with the Apostles or 
their disciples, I now commenced my studies. 

Great, then, was my surprise, — not unaccompanied, 1 own, 
by a slight twinge of remorse, — when, in the person of one of 
these simple, apostolical writers, I found that I had popped upon 
a Pope — an actual Pope? — being the third Bishop, after St. 
Peter, of that very Church of Rome which I was now about to 
desert for her modern rival. This primitive occupant of the 
See of Rome was St. Clement, one of those fellow-laborers of 
St. Paul, whose " names are written in the Book of Life ;" and 
it was by St. Peter himself, as Tertullian tells us, that he had 
been ordained to be his successor. This proof of the antiquity 
and apostolical source of the Papal authority startled me not a 
little. " A Pope ! and ordained by St. Peter 1" exclaimed I, 
as I commenced reading the volume : "now, 'by St. Peter's 
Church, and Peter too,' this much surpriseth me." There was, 
however, still enough of the Papist lingering in my heart to 
make me turn over the pages of Pope St. Clement with peculiar 
respect ; and I could not but see that, even in those simple, 
un polemic times, when the actual exercise of authority could 
be so little called for, the jurisdiction of the See of Peter was 
fully acknowledged. 

A schism, or, as St. Clement himself describes it, " a foul and 
unholy sedition,"* having broken out in the Church of Corinth, 
an appeal was made to the Church of Rome for its interference 
and advice, and the Epistle which this Holy Father addressed 
to the Corinthians in answer, is confessedly one of the most 
interesting monuments of Ecclesiastical Literature that have de- 
scended to us. 

The next of these primitive followers of the Apostles, whose 
writings engaged my attention, was St. Ignatius, the immediate 
successor of the Apostle Peter in the See of Antioch. This 
holy man was by his contemporaries called Theophorus, or the 
Godborne, from a general notion that he was the child men- 
tioned by Matthew and Mark, as having been taken up by our 
Saviour in his arms, and set in the midst of his disciples. It 
was, therefore, with a feeling of reverent curiosity that I ap. 
proached his volume : and much as I had been, in my igno- 
rance, astonished, to find a Pope, or Bishop of Rome, presiding-)- 
at such a period over the whole Christian world, I was now 
infinitely more astounded and puzzled by what met my eyes in 

* Mtapai/ icai avocriov gtolciv. 

f The Epistle of St. Ignatius to the Romans, which was written in the 
first century, is addressed " to the Church that presides (TrpoKaOnrai) in the 
country of the Romans." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



15 



the pages* of Ignatius, a writer nursed, as it were, in the very 
cradle of our faith, and who, as one of the first that followed in 
the footsteps of the Divine Guide, was among the last from 
whom I could have expected a doctrine so essentially Popish, — 
the invention, as I had always been led to suppose, of the darkest 
ages, and maintained in mockery, as well of reason, as of the 
senses, — the doctrine, in short, of a real, corporal presence in 
the Eucharist ! 

In speaking of the Docetae, or Phantastics, a sect of heretics 
who held that Christ was but, in appearance, Man, — a mere 
semblance or phantasm of humanity, — Ignatius says, " They 
stay away from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they 
will not acknowledge the Eucharist to he the flesh of our Saviour 
Jesus Christ, that flesh which suffered for our sins." Now, when 
it is considered that the leading doctrine of the Docetae was that 
the body assumed by Christ was but apparent, there cannot be a 
doubt that the particular opinion of the orthodox, to which they 
opposed themselves, was that which held the presence of Christ's 
body in the Eucharist to be real. It is evident that a figurative 
or unsubstantial presence, such as Protestants maintain, would 
in no degree have offended their anti- corporeal notions ; but, 
on the contrary, indeed, would have fallen in with that wholly 
spiritual view of Christ's nature which had led these heretics to 
deny the possibility of his incarnation. 

This perplexing and irresistible proof, on the very threshold 
of my inquiry, of the existence of such a belief among the orlho- 
dox of the first century, threw me, I own, into a state of un- 
speakable amazement. I looked at the words again — rubbed 
my eyes, and again consulted my lexicon. But I had made 
no mistake ; — there it was, in black and white, stark staring 
Popery. I had found language of a similar import, respecting 
the Eucharist, in other passages of the same Father ; — in the 
Epistle to the Philadelphians, and in that also to the Romans. 
But had there existed only these notices, his precise opinion upon 
the subject might have been doubtful ; and, as in many other 
cases, where the Fathers have happened to express themselves 
allegorically or obscurely, would have remained matter of con- 
troversy. But taken, as I have already said, with reference to 
the Docetae, and representing the belief of those heretics, re- 
specting the Eucharist, as wholly irreconcilable with the creed 
of the orthodox,* this passage in the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 

* " It seems highly probable that communicants, in St. Ignatius's days, 
were obliged expressly to acknowledge the Eucharist to be Christ's body 
a : ) r 1 blood, by answering 'Amen' at the delivery of the sacramental body and 
blood, as well as by joining in prayer to God that he would make them so; 
and because the Docetae could not do this, therefore they absented them- 
selves from the Christian assemblies." — Johnson. That this express acknow 



i6 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 

can admit of but one conclusion, namely, that the orthodox 
Christians of that day saw in the consecrated bread and wine, 
not any mere memorial, representation, type, or emblem, — not 
any such figurative substitute for the body of our Lord, — but his 
own real substance, corporally present and orally manducated. 

To find myself thus back again in the very depths of Popery, 
after having so fondly fancied that I had emerged from them 
for ever, was, it must be owned, not a little trying to a neophyte's 
zeal ; — nor had I well recovered from my surprise and perplexity 
at this sample of Popish doctrine, when, on turning to an account 
of the martyrdom of this same Father, I fell upon a no less 
glaring specimen of Popish practice. Ignatius, as is well known 
to all readers of martyrology, was delivered up to be devoured 
by lions in the amphitheatre at Rome. After the victim had 
been despatched, the faithful deacons who had accompanied him 
on his journey, gathered up, as we are told, the few bones which 
the wild beasts had spared, and carrying them back to Antioch, 
deposited them there religiously in a shrine, round which annu- 
all} 7 , on the day of his martyrdom, the Faithful assembled, and, 
in memory of his self-devotion, kept vigil around his relics ! 

It should have been mentioned, also, — to make the matter 
still worse, — that, when- on his way through Asia to the scene 
of his sufferings, this illustrious Father, in exhorting the Churches 
to be on their guard against Heresy, impressed earnestly upon 
them " to hold fast by the Traditions of the Apostles — thus 
sanctioning that twofold Rule of Faith, the Unwritten as well as 
the Written Word, which by all good Protestants is repudiated 
as one of the falsest of the false doctrines of Popery ! 

Marvellous to me, most marvellous, were these discoveries , 
■ — a Pope, Relics of Saints, Apostolical Traditions, and a Cor- 
poral Eucharist, all in the First Age of the Church ! — who could 
lave thought it ? 



CHAPTER IV. 

Vision of Hermas. — Weekly Fasting. — Good Works. — Rector of Bally- 
mudragget. — Rector no Faster. — Comparison between the Rector and 
Hermas. 

After turning over the two Epistles that remain of St. Bar- 
nabas and St. Polycarp, and learning but little, towards the object 

edgment of the Real Presence was required of communicants, in the first 
a^es of the Church, appears from all the ancient liturgies, and we have St. 
A u 'Justin's authority that such was the meaning attached to the "Amen," in 
his times: — " Habet magnam vocem Christi sanguis in terra cum, eo ac- 
cepto, ab omnibus gentibus respondetur Amen." — Contra Faust. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



17 



of my search, from either, it was with some pleasure I opened 
the pages of the pious and fanciful Hermas, and among his 
Visions, which breathe all the simplicity of an apostolic age, for- 
got myself, for some hours, as in a fairy tale. His recollections 
of his early love — his seeing the heavens open, as he knelt 
one day praying in a meadow, and beholding the maid whom 
he had loved looking out of the clouds to salute him, saying 
" Good day, Hermas !" — his account of the various visions in 
which "the Church of God" had appeared to him ; now, in the 
shape of an aged matron, reading ; — -now, as a young maiden, 
clad all in white, and having a mitre on her head, over which 
the long hair fell shining ; — through all these innocent and (as 
they were thought at the time) inspired fancies* I wandered with 
the good Father, in a sort of drowsy reverie, even as though 
I were myself the dreamer of his visions. 

It was not till, in the course of my reading, I came to that 
part of his work called Precepts and Similitudes, — which were, 
as he says, revealed to him by his guardian angel, in the shape 
of a Shepherd, — that I was awakened to a recollection of the im- 
mediate object of my studies, and awakened, also, alas, to find 
myself once more in Popish company. This Father, be it re- 
collected, was one of those distinguished Christians to whom St. 
Paul sends salutations in the Epistle to the Romans, and among 
the moral precepts which in this work he represents his angel 
to have communicated to him, is the following : — " The first 
thing we have to do is to observe the commandments of God. 
If afterwards a man wishes to add thereunto any good work, such 
as fasting, he will receive the greater recompense." 

Here again was sheer Popery, both in doctrine and practice 
— Satisfaction to God by Good Works, and one of those good 
works, Fasting ! 

To this latter observance, I had from my childhood enter- 
tained a peculiar aversion; and it was therefore with pain, as 
well as wonder, I now made the discovery that, in rigor of fasting, 
the early Christians outwent even our strictest Romanists. The 
Fast preparatory to Easter Day, which was one of total absti- 
nence, was by some pious persons continued for the space of 
forty successive hours ; and those who laugh at Papists now for 
fasting twice a week, would have had equal grounds for laugh- 
ing at the Primitive Christians, who, by the Apostolic Canons, 
were enjoined to a similar practice ; — the only difference being 

* Crimen quotes the Shepherd as a work divinely inspired ; and Ruffinus 
expressly styles it a "Book of the New Testament." — Expos, in Sijmb. 
Apostol. Whiston, too, with his usual ready belief in all that suits his pur- 
pose, considers the Shepherd to be a distinct inspired book of itself, which 
** £^>nes directly from our Saviour, as the Apocalypse does." 
B 2* 



18 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



that the appointed days of fasting, which were then Wednesda) 
and Friday, are now Friday and Saturday.* Just before Easter, 
indeed, these latter days were also observed, as fast-days, and 
for this reason, that " in those days the bridegroom was taken 
away."f And this was the age to which I had been sent for 
emancipation from Popery ! 

These ancient Christians, too, contrived to make the Good 
Work of Fasting subservient to another practice, reputed also 
among Good Works, alms-giving ; the same Apostolic Canons 
informing us that whatever had been saved by abstinence was 
always laid out in relieving the necessities of the poor.i 

How vividly now, as I sat leaning my elbow on the pages of 
" the Shepherd," did I call to mind what my own feelings had 
been, more than once, at my poor father's table, when it has 
happened that our rich neighbor, the Rector of Ballymudragget, 
has invited himself to dine with us, on a Friday, or other fast- 
day ; and while his Reverence has sat feasting on the flesh and 
fowl provided purposely for his regale, I have found myself 
forced to put up with that sorry fare which " Hopdance cried 
for in poor Tom's belly — two white herring and still more 
mortifying, had to bear the smile of consequential pity with which 
the Rector looked round on his superstitious fellow-diners, — ■ 
blessing his stars, no doubt, that the glorious Reformation had 
put all these matters on so much more civilized and gentleman- 
like a footing. 

Little did I then, for my consolation, know that I was borne 
out by the Apostolic Canons in my starvation ; and when I now 
pondered over these things, and compared my fat friend, the 
Rector, with the simple Her mas, who can wonder if a slight 
doubt came over my mind, whether, — as far, at least, as a world 
to come is concerned, — it might not be safer to fast with the 
friend of St. Paul, than to feast with the Rector of Bally- 
mudragget. 

* The learned Bishop Beveridge, who supposes these Canons to have been 
framed by the disciples of the Apostles about the end of the second century, 
considers the Fasts therein enjoined to have been of apostolical institution. — 
Codex Canon Ec. fyc. Mosheim, too, allows that " those who affirm that, in 
the time of the apostles, or soon after, the fourth and sixth days of the week 
were observed as Fasts, are not, it must be acknowledged, destitute of spe- 
cious arguments in favor of their opinion." 

f " But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, 
and then shall they fast." — Matthew ix, 15. St. Jerome, who pronounces 
Lent to be an apostolic institution, attributes the same high origin to the 
Saturday's Fast. 

J T/;y nepuxaeiav r^y vYiaruas nevrjffiv Em%iopriy£iv. — Jlp. Const. Lib. 5. 
§ ShaksDeare's Lear. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



19 



CHAPTER V. 

Second Century. — St. Justin the Martyr. — Transubstantiation. — St. frenaeus. 
— Papal Supremacy. — Sacrifice of the Mass. — Unwritten Tradition.— 
Old Man of the Sea. 

Thus far my progress in Protestantism had not been very 
rapid. I was determined, however, not to be lightly turned 
aside from my purpose ; so, taking leave of the simple writers 
of .he apostolic age, I launched boldly into the sacred literature 
of the Second Century, hoping to find, on my way, somewhat 
more of the Thirty-nine Articles, and somewhat less of Popery. 
I had but a short way, however, descended the stream, when I 
found my sails taken aback by the following passage in St. 
Justin the Martyr, — a man described by an ancient bishop as 
being near to the Apostles both in time and in virtue : " Nor do 
we take these gifts (in the Eucharist) as common bread and com- 
mon drink ; but as Jesus Christ, our Saviour, made man by the 
word of God, took flesh and blood for our salvation, so in the 
same manner we have been taught that the food which has 
been blessed by prayer, and by which our blood and flesh, in 
the change, are nourished, is the flesh and blood of tliat Jesus 
incarnated — Apol. 1. 

The assertion of a real, corporal Presence, by St. Ignatius, had 
more than sufficiently startled me ; but here was a still stronger 
case, a belief in the change of the elements, in actual Transub- 
stantiation, — and this on the part of a saint so illustrious as St. 
Justin ! Verily, they who could send a Christian youth to learn 
Protestant doctrine of teachers like these, must plead guilty to 
the charge either of grossly deceiving him or being ignorant 
themselves. 

We have already seen that the Primacy of the Roman See 
was, in the only case that called for an appeal to it, acknow- 
ledged in the first age of the Church ; and I now found, in the 
second age, the same claim practically and universally recog- 
nized, both in the acts of the Church and in the writings of her 
chief pastors. How little could I have anticipated such a dis- 
covery ! — the " Great Harlot," the " Mother of the fornications 
and abominations of the earth" (as so often I had heard our 
college preacher style the Papacy,) standing, in the pure morn- 
ing of Christianity, supreme and unrivalled ! 

Accustomed, indeed, as I had long been, to consider the papal 
jurisdiction as an usurpation of the dark ages, the clear proofs 1 
now saw of the chain of succession by which its title is carried 
up and fixed fast in that " Rock" on which the Church itself is 
built, convinced and confounded me ; nor, though myself but an 



20 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



" emhryon immature" of Protestantism, could I help sympa- 
thizing most heartily with all that a full-fledged follower of that 
faith must feel, on reading the following strong attestation of the 
Papal Primacy in St. Irenaeus. — a writer, be it recollected, so 
near to the apostolical times as to have had for his instructor 
in Christianity a disciple of St. John the Evangelist : 

" We can enumerate those bishops who were appointed by 
the Apostles and their successors down to ourselves, none of 
whom taught or even knew the wild opinions of these men 
(heretics) . . . However, as it would be tedious to enumerate the 
whole list of successions, I shall confine myself to that of Ro?ne, 
the greatest and most ancient and most illustrious Church, founded 
by the glorious Apostles Peter and Paul ; receiving from them 
her doctrine which was announced to all men, and which, through 
the succession of her bishops, is come down to us. Thus we con- 
found all those who, through evil designs, or vainglory, or per- 
verseness, teach what they ought not ; for, to this Church, on 
account of its superior Headship, every other must have recourse, 
that is, the faithful of all countries ; in which Church has been 
preserved the doctrine delivered by the Apostles." — Adv. Hares. 
Lib. 3. 

Of Irenaeus it must be, in truth, acknowledged that, though so 
apostolically educated, and graced by Photius with the title of 
" the Divine Irenaeus,"* he would have made but a faithless 
subscriber to the Thirty-nine Articles. For only hear how this 
Saint speaks of the Sacrifice of the Mass,f — that " blasphemous 
fable," as the Thirty-first of those Articles terms it : — " Like- 
wise he declared the cup to be his blood, and taught the new 
Oblation of the New Testament, which oblation the Church re- 
ceiving from the Apostles, offers it to God over all the earth." 
Again : — " Therefore, the offering of the Church, which the 
Lord directed to be made over all the world, was deemed a pure 
sacrifice before God and received by Him."J 

Consistently with his belief of a Sacrifice in the Eucharist, 
this Father maintained also, with Justin and Ignatius, the Real 
Presence of Christ's body and blood in that Sacrament ; pro- 
nouncing it a miracle such as could not be supposed to exist, 

* Tov decnreaiov JLiprivaiov. 

\ Anciently called the Sacrifice of the New Testament, or Catholic Sacri- 
fice (QuaiaxadoXucrt. — Chrysostom, Serm. de Cruce et Latrone,) the word Mass 
not having been introduced till about the time of St. Ambrose. 

J See also Justin. Dial.. cum Tryphon. 

"The Centuriators of Magdeburgh, — whose zeal and acuteness displayed 
in the Protestant cause are well known — have been constrained reluctantly 
to own that the existence of the Sacrifice of the New Law stands recorded in 
the early monuments of Christianity ; and on the passage of St. Irenaeus here 
referred to, they express their acknowledgment in terms of indignation."— 
C^ombes's Essence of Religious Controversy. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



21 



without admitting the Divinity of Him who had instituted ir. 
" How," he asks, " can these heretics (those who denied that 
Christ was the Son of God) prove that the bread over which the 
words of thanksgiving have been pronounced is the body of their 
Lord and the cup his blood, while they do not admit that he is 
the Son, that is, the Word of the Creator of the world ?" 

To the same heretics, who, from their view s of the corruption 
of matter, could not reconcile to themselves the doctrine of a 
resurrection of the body, he makes use of an argument ibunded, 
in like manner, on his belief of the reality'of Christ's Presence 
and the transubstantiation of the elements : — " When (says he) 
the mingled chalice and the broken bread receive the word of 
God, they become the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ,* 
by which the substance of our flesh is increased and strengthened. 
How then can they pretend, that this flesh is not susceptible 
of eternal life which is nourished by the body and blood of the 
Lord and is his member ?" 

On the subject of Unwritten Tradition, — that contested source 
of so much of the doctrine, practice, and power of Rome, this 
Father's testimony brings with it double weight, inasmuch as he 
not only asserts, in all his writings, the high authority of Tradi- 
tion, but was himself one of the earliest and brightest links in 
that chain of oral delivery which has descended to the Church 
of Rome from the apostolic age. Referring to his own master, 
Polycarp, who had been the disciple of St. John the Evan- 
gelist,"]" he says — " Polycarp always taught these things, which 
he had learned from the Apostles, which he delivered to the 
Church, and which alone are true." In a fragment of another 
of his writings there occurs a most impressive and interesting 
passage to the same effect. Addressing a heretic, named Flo- 
rinus, who had adopted the errors of the Valentinians, he says 
— " Those opinions the Presbyters before us, who also conversed 
with the Apostles, have not delivered to you. For I saw you, 
when I was very young, in the Lower Asia with Polycarp. . . 
I better remember the affairs of that time than those which have 
lately happened ; the things which we learn in our childhood 
growing up with the soul and uniting themselves to it. Insomuch 

* There is yet a stronger passage to this purpose in one of those Frag- 
ments attributed to Irenaeus, which were published in 1715 by Dr. Pfaff, from 
manuscripts in the King; of Sardinia's Library; — where, in describing the 
ceremonies of the Sacrifice, it is said that the Holy Spirit is invoked that he 
may make the bread the body of Christ and the cup the blood of Christ. 
Much doubt, however, has been thrown upon the genuineness of these Frag- 
ments, both by MafFei, who objected to them on their first appearance, and 
by the remarks of the ever judicious Lardner afterwards. 

j By many also supposed to have been the Angel of the Church of Smyrna, 
to whom the Epistle in the second chapter of the Book of Revelatior was 
directed to be sent. 



22 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



' that I can tell the place in which the Blessed Polycarp sat and 
taught, and his going out and coming in ; and the manner of his 
life and the form of his person ; and the discourses he made to 
the people, and how he related his conversation with St. John, 
and others who had seen the Lord ; and how he related their say. 
ings, and what he had heard from them concerning the Lord ; both 
concerning his miracles and his doctrine, as he had received them 
from the eye-witnesses of the Word of Life : all which Polycarp 
related agreeable to the Scriptures. These things I then, through 
the mercy of God toward me, diligently heard and attended to, 
recording them not on paper, but upon my heart ; and, through 
the grace of God, I continually renew my remembrance of them." 

Could we now summon to earth the shade of this holy Father, 
— this Saint, so " nourished up in the words of faith and of good 
doctrine," — with what face can we imagine a Protestant, an 
upstart of the Reformation, to stand forth, in contradiction to so 
orthodox a spirit, and pronounce the Unwritten Word of the 
Catholic Church to be but an inheritance of imposture, the 
jurisdiction of the See of St. Peter a rank usurpation, and the 
Sacrifice of the Holy Mass " a blasphemous fable ?" 

If any thing more were wanting to show the deep sense which 
this Father entertained of the rev mce due to the authority and 
traditions of the Church, we sh^id find it in the few following 
passages from his writings: — "In explaining the Scriptures / 
Christians are to attend to the Pastors of the Church, who, by 
the ordinance of God, have received the inheritance of truth, 
with the succession of their Sees." " The tongues of nations 
vary, but the virtue of tradition is one and the same everywhere ; 
nor do the churches in Germany believe or teach differently 
from those in Spain, Gaul, the East, Egypt, or Lvbia." " Sup- 
posing the Apostles had not left us the Scriptures, ought we not 
still to have followed the ordinance of Tradition, which they 
consigned to those to whom they committed the Churches? It 
is this ordinance of Tradition which many nations of barbarians, 
believing in Christ, follow without the use of letters or ink." — 
Adv. Haer. Lib. 4. 

It will easily be believed that, at the close of this long day's 
studies, I felt utterly disheartened and wearied with mv pursuit. 
I had now found sanctioned by the authority of the Church's 
earliest champions, — some of them men who " had the preaching 
of the Apostles still sounding in their ears," — six no less Popish 
points of faith and observance than — 1. The acknowledgment 
of a Sovereign Pontiff ;* 2. A Reverence due to Relics ; 3. 
Satisfaction to God by fasting, alms-deeds, &c. ; 4. The author. 

* We find this very title of " Sovereign Pontiff" given to the Bishop of 
Rome by no less high and ancient an authority than Tertullian. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



23 



ity of Tradition ; 5. A Corporeal Presence in the Eucharist ; 
and 6. The Sacrifice of the Mass. Who can wonder if, after 
all this, I despaired of ridding myself of Popery ? Heaving a 
heavy sigh, as I closed my ponderous folios, and with a sort of 
oppressed sensation, as if the Pope were himself bodily on my 
back, I went to bed feeling much as Sinbad the Sailor would 
have done, if, after having shaken off, as he thought, the ^rou- 
blesome little old Man of the Sea, he felt the legs of the creature 
again fastening round his neck. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Makingthe sign of the Cross. — Tertmlian. — Veneration of Images. — Prayers 
for the Dead. — Determination to find Protestantism somewhere. 

On the following morning I rose, — thanks to the recruiting 
power of sleep, — somewhat recovered from the rebuffs of the 
few preceding days, and feeling, on the whole, as well and Pro. 
tesiant as could be expected. At least, my horror of returning 
to Popery was as strong as ever ; though my chances of be- 
coming a good Protestant, — c indeed, finding out what a good 
Protestant was, — had become an but desperate, I was, therefore, 
pretty much in the " unhoused condition" of that sect of here- 
tics, called Basilidians, who described themselves as being no 
longer Jews, but still not yet Christians. 

Of the disagreeable, but apostolic, practice of weekly fasting 
I have already spoken ; but there was another Popish custom, 
against which, as a badge of anile superstition, I still more in- 
dignantly rebelled ; — and this was the practice of making the 
sign of the Cross on the forehead, after grace, at meals.* -The 
feeling of shame with which, in my youth, I used to perform 
this overt act of Popery, in the presence of Protestants, I shall 
never forget.* Nor do I appear to have been, in this feeling, at 
all singular among my fellow-Catholics, as I have observed that, 
ever since the two Religions have come to be on dining terms 
with each other, the practice has been almost wholly discon- 
tinued , insomuch that he must be a primitive Catholic indeed, 
who, in the present times, would venture to bless himself (as the 
operation is called) in good company. 

" This, at least," said I to myself, pettishly, as I opened a 
huge volume of Tertullian, — " this monk's trick, at least, can 

* It appears from occasional rebukes, in the Fathers, on this subject, that 
a similar shame of being seen to make the sign of the cross was not unknown 
even among ancient Catholics. — "Let us not be ashamed (says St. Cyril) to 
confess Him who was crucified ; let the cypay.s (the sign of the cross) be 
confidently made upon the forehead with the finger." 



24 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



assuredly never have received any sanction from the orthodox 
Christians of the early Church." The words had scarcely passed 
my lips, when, on turning to this Father's account of the modes 
and customs of his fellow-Christians, I read, to my astoundment, 
as follows : — " We sign ourselves with the sign of the cross ic 
the forehead, whenever we go from home or return, when w< 
put m our clothes or our shoes, when we go to the bath, or si/ 
down to meat, when we light our candles, when we lie down and 
when we sit." Here was crossing enough, God knows, — cross 
ing enough, in a single day of Tertullian's, to serve the most 
particular old Catholic lady in all Ireland for a week. 

There now remained little else to fill up the measure of 
what are called Popish superstitions but Veneration of Images 
and Prayers for the Dead ; — and to both these I found the same 
eminent Father lending his sanction. In speaking of the wife 
who survives her husband, he desires that she should pray for 
her husband's soul, solicit for him refreshment, and offer on the 
anniversaries of his death." In another place, too, we find him 
tracing this practice to apostolical traditions, not enforced, as he 
says, by the positive words of Scripture, but delivered down from 
his predecessors ; — thus not only upholding the papistical usage 
of praying for the Dead, but deriving his authority for it through 
that equally papistical channel, Tradition ? 

With respect to Images, the use of which, as memorials, was 
derived also by the early Christians from tradition, a passing 
sentence of Tertullian, in which he mentions, as though it were 
of common occurrence, the pictures of Christ upon the com- 
munion. cups,* is a sufficient proof that the use of images had 
been, at the time he wrote, long prevalent. There appears little 
doubt, indeed, that Reformed eyes would have been shocked by 
such* " idolatrous" representations, not only in the second cen- 
tary of Christianity, but most probably from its very earliest 
periods.*]" From the same fondness for religious memorials, we 
find St. Clement of Alexandria, in the same century, recom- 
mending to Christians to wear the figure of a fish engraved on 
their rings, — the fish being a symbol of the name of Christ. J 

* In a curious work on the Eucharistic Cups of the ancient Christians, 
(by Doughty,) the author has collected, with much industry, an account of 
the different materials of which these vessels were formed, from wood up to 
crystal, onyx, &c, and among the images upon them he particularly specifies 
that of the Crucified Saviour, and the good Shepherd carrying the lamb on 
his shoulders. 

f In the year 814, when Leo, the Armenian, assembled several bishops 
in order to induce them to break images, Euthymius, metropolitan of Sardis, 
thus addressed him: — "Know, sire, that for eight hundred years and more 
since Christ came into the world, he has been painted and adored in his 
image. Who will be bold enough to abolish so ancient a tradition?" 

X Clem. Alexand. Opera cura Potteri, p. 288. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



25 



I had now, in addition to the six " plague-spots of Popery," 
which I had already, in this her virgin period, counted on the 
fair face of the Church, to number also the three following, — 
viz. 7. Prayers for the Dead. — 8. Veneration of Images. And 
9. Crossing, without end ! Assuredly, any one less determined 
than myself to find Protestantism somewhere, would have given 
up the chase in despair. But I was still resolved to persevere. 
I had bid too solemn a farewell to Popery to allow of my revoking 
the step now with a good grace. Besides, it is but fair to con 
fess, — what I ought perhaps to have confessed somewhat sooner, 
— that, in addition to a very conscientious desire of exchanging 
my religion for a better, I had also some motives of a more 
mundane and, I may add, tender nature, which had considerable 
weight in determining me to become a Protestant as soon as 
possible ; — motives which, though of that class usually styled 
private and delicate, I shall, in some future chapter, venture to 
communicate to the reader. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Great dearth of Protestantism.— Try Third and Fourth Centuries.- -St. 
Cyprian. — Origen. — Primacy of St. Peter and the Pope. — St. Jerome. — 
List of Popish abominations. 

Though I had now pretty well convinced myself that if, as 
Protestants assure us, the pure original of their Creed is to be 
found in the first ages, it must be found there in some such 
modest and unobtrusive shape as that of a certain tragic author's 
" moon behind a cloud," I did not, even yet, allow myself to 
despair of catching, at least, a glimpse of this retired luminary. 
I therefore continued my Inquest, and, summoning the Fathers 
of the two following centuries before me, resolved to try whether, 
by dint of close cross-questioning, I should be able to detect a 
single Protestant among them. But no ; the answer of all was 
the same, — they belonged to the one Catholic Church ; to that 
Church, says St. Cyprian, " which, imbrued with the light of the 
Lord, sends forth her rays over the whole earth." When asked 
to name ,the centre from which this Catholic light radiates, the 
same Saint points to Rome, to the Chair of Peter, and " the prin- 
cipal Church (as he says emphatically) whence the Sacerdotal 
Unity took its rise." — Ep. 55. 

Thus foiled, I flew to Origen, with somewhat, perhaps, of a 
hope that, being but a questionable Saint, he might prove a good 
Protestant. But my success was no better ; I found him as 
eager for the Primacy of St. Peter and the Pope as his brethren 

3 



26 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



and, on the subject of exclusive salvation, as Catholic as need 
be : " Let no one," he says, " persuade, let no one deceive him. 
self ; out of this house, that is, out of the Church, there is no sal- 
vation." — Horn. 3 in Josue. By St. Jerome this monopoly of 
heaven was, I saw, asserted with no less vigor : — " I know that 
the Church is founded upon Peter, that is, on a Rock. Who- 
ever eateth the lamb out of that house, is a profane man. Who- 
ever is not in the Ark shall perish by the flood." — Ep. 14 ad 
Dam. To a wight, like me, just tottering upon the edge of said 
Ark, — if not already off, — this metaphoric hint was comfortable ' 
On all those Popish points of belief and practice which, as 1 
have shown, were sanctioned by the Fathers of the two First 
Centuries, I found the doctrine of those of the Third and Fourth 
precisely the same ; — only put forth more copiously in detail, 
and enforced by richer stores of ingenuity and learning. To 
bring forward, indeed, all the testimonies that might, but too 
triumphantly, be cited to prove that, in those times, Christianity 
and Popery were convertible terms, would be to transcribe the 
greater part of the writings of the four first ages, from the sim- 
ple Hermas down to the learned and rhetorical St. Chrysostom. 
I shall therefore content myself with adding to what I have 
already said of the Primitive times, a few specimens of the 
doctrine held by the leading Fathers of the third and fourth 
centuries, on some of the principal points at issue between the 
Church of Rome and her opponents. 

AUTHORITY OF THE CHURCH. TRADITION. 

Tertullian.* — " To know what the Apostles taught, that is, 
what Christ revealed to them, recourse must be had to the 
Churches which they founded, and which they instructed by 
word of mouth and by their Epistles." — De Prccscrip. c. 21. 

" Of these (certain practices in the administration of Baptism) 
and other usages, if you ask for the written authority of the 
Scriptures, none will be found. They spring from Tradition, 
which practice has confirmed and obedience ratified" — De Co 
rona Militis, c. 3, 4. " To the Scriptures, therefore, an appeal 

must not be made the question is, to whom was 

that doctrine committed by which we are made Christians ? for 
where this doctrine and this faith shall be found, there will be 
the truth of the Scriptures and their expositions, and of all 
Christian Traditions." — De Prcescrip. c. 19. 

Origen. — " As there are many who think they believe what 
Christ taught, and some of these differ from others, it becomes 
necessary that all should profess that doctrine which came down 

* This Father, having embraced Christianity about the year 185 and died 
in 2 IS, is usually claimed as belonging alike to both Centuries. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



27 



from ihe Apostles, and now continues in the Church. That 
ilone is truth which in nothing differs from ecclesiastical and 
apostolical tradition" — Praef. lib. 1. de Princip. "As oflen 
as the heretics produce the Canonical Scriptures in which every 
Christian agrees and believes, they seem to say, Lo ! with us is 
the word of truth. But to them (the heretics) we cannot give 
credit, nor depart from the first and ecclesiastical tradition. We 
can believe only as the succeeding Churches of God have de. 
livered"— Tract. 29 in Mat. 

Lactantius. — " The Catholic Church alone retains the true 
worship. This is the source of truth, this is the dwelling of 
faith."— Inst. I. 4. c. 30. 

Cyprian. — " It is easy to minds that are religious and simple 
to lay aside error, and to discover truth : for if we turn to the 
source of Divine tradition, error ceases."* — Ep>. 63. 

Eusebius. — " Which truths, though they he consigned to the 
Sacred Writings, are still, in a f idler manner, confirmed by the 
Traditions of the Catholic Church, which Church is diffused 
over all the earth. This unwritten Tradition confirms and seals 
the testimonies of the Holy Scriptures." — Dem. Evang. lib. 1. 

Basil. — " Among the dogmas of the Church there are some 
contained in the Scriptures, and some come from Tradition ; 
but both have an equal efficacy in the promotion of piety." — De 
Spirit. Sanct. c. 27. " In my opinion, it is apostolical to adhere 
to unwritten Traditions." — Ibid. c. 29. "It is the common aim 
of all the enemies of sound doctrine, to shake the solidity of our 
faith in Christ by annidling apostolical Tradition .... they 
dismiss the unwritten testimony of the Fathers as a thing of no 
value" — lb. c. 10. 

Epiphanius. — " We must look also to Tradition , for all things 
cannot be learned from the Scriptures." 

Chrysostom. — " Hence it is manifest that they (the Apostles) 
did not deliver all things by means of Epis'.les, but that they 
made many communications without writing ; and that both are 
equally entitled to credence. It is a tradition, ask no f urther." 
— Horn. 4. in 2 Thess.*f 

PRIMACY OF THE SUCCESSORS OF ST. PETER. 

Some of the strong testimonies, on this point, of St. Irenseus, 
St. Cyprian, &c, have already been laid before the reader. 

■ * On this passage St. Augustin remarks : — " The advice which St. Cyprian 
gives to recur to the Tradition of the Apostles, and thence to bring down the 
series to our own times, is excellent, and manifestly to be followed." — De 
Eapt. contra Donatist. I. 5. c. 26. 

f On the passage of St. Paul : "Therefore, brethren, stand fact, and hold 
the traditions which ye have been taught whether by word, or our epistle." 



23 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Cyprian. — " Nevertheless that he (Christ) might clearly es- 
tablish unity, he formed one See, and by his authority fixed the 
origin of this same unity by beginning from one. The other 
apostles were accordingly, like Peter, invested with an equal 
participation of honor and power ; but the beginning is built 
on unity. The Primacy is given to Peter that there might be 
exhibited one Church of Christ and one See." — De Unitat 
Eccles. 

Jerome. — (In a letter to Pope Damasus.) "I am following 
no other than Christ, united to the communion of your Holiness, 
that is, to the Chair of Peter. 1 know that the Church is 
founded upon that Rock." — Ep. 14. ad Damasum. " I cease not 
to proclaim, He is mine who lemains united to the Chair of 
Peter." 

Chrysostom. — " For what reason did Christ shed his blood 1 
Certainly, to gain those sheep the care of which he committed to 
Peter and his successors." 

SATISFACTION TO GOD BY PENITENTIAL WORKS. 

Cypi ian. — " The Lord must be invoked ; must be appeased 
by our satisfaction." — De Lapsis. " Before Him let the soul 

bow down : to Him let our sorrow make satisfaction : 

By fasting, by tears, and by moaning, let us appease, as he 
himself admonishes, his indignation." — lb. " Purge away your 
sins by works of justice, and by alms-deeds which may save the 
soul. God can pardon : he can turn away his judgment. He 
can pardon the penitent who implores forgiveness ; he can 
accept for him the supplications of others ; or should he move 
him more by his own works of satisfaction, and thus disarm his 
anger, the Lord will repair his strength, whereby he shall be 
invigorated anew."* — lb. 

Ambrose. — " Let Christ see thee weeping, that he may say, 
' Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted' 
(Mat. v. 4.) Therefore did he immediately pardon Peter, be- 

* See Bossuet's defence of the language of St. Cyprian, on this subject, in 
answer to M. Jurieu. " II faut, dit-U (Saint Cyprian,) satisfaire a Dieu pour 
szs peches ; mais il faut aussi que la satisfaction soit regue par notre Seigneur. 
Jl faut croire que tout ce qu'on fait n'a rien de parfait ni de suffisant en soi- 
meme; puisqu'apres tout, quoique nous fassions, nous ne sommes que de 
serviteurs inutiles et que nous m'avons pas meme a nous glorifier du peu que 
nous faisons, puisque, comme nous l'avons deja rapporte tout nous vient de 
Dieu par Jesus Christ, en qui seul nous avons acces aupres du Pere." — 
Jlveriissemens aux Protestans. Such is the much misrepresented doctrine of 
Catholics on this point. 

The language of St. Augustin respecting this doctrine is fully as Popish as 
that of St. Cyprian : — "It is not enough," he says, "that the sinner change 
his ways, and depart from his evil works, unless by penitential sorrow, by 
humble tears, by the sacrifice of a contrite heart, and by alms-deeds, he make 
satisfaction to God for what he has committed." — Homil. 1. T. x. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



29 



cause he wept bitterly ; and if thou weep in like manner, Christ 

will look on thee, and thy sin will be cancelled Let 

no consideration then withhold thee from doing penance. In 
this imitate the Saints, and let their tears be the measure of thy 
own." — De Pcenit. c. 10. 

PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 

Cyril of Jerusalem. — " Then (in the Sacrifice of the Mass) 
we pray for the Holy Fathers and the Bishops that are dead ; 
and in short, for all those who are departed this life in our com- 
munion; believing that the souls of those, for whom the prayers 
are offered, receive very great relief, while this holy and tre- 
mendous victim lies upon the altar." — Catech. Mystag. 5. 

Ambrose. — (In his Funeral Oration on the two Emperors, 
Valentinians.) " Blessed shall you both be if my prayers can 
avail any thing. No day shall pass, in which I will not mention 
you with honor ; no night in which you shall not partake of 
my prayers. In all my oblations I will remember you." 

Epiphanius. — " There is nothing more opportune, nothing more 
to be admired, than the rite which directs the names of the dead 
to he mentioned. They are aided by the Prayer which is offered 
for them, though it may not cancel all their faults. — We mention 
both the just and sinners, in order that for the latter we may 
obtain mercy." — Hcer. 55. 

Chrysostom. — " It is not in vain that oblations and prayers 
are offered and alms given for the dead. So has the Divine 
Spirit ordained that we might mutually assist one another." — 
Homil. 21. " Not without reason was it ordained by the Apostle, 
that in celebrating the Sacred Mysteries the Dead should be 
remembered ; for they well knew what advantage would thence 
be derived to them." — Homil. 3. in Epist. ad Philip.* 

INVOCATION OF SAINTS AND OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 

Origen. — " We may be allowed to say of all the holy men 
who have quitted this life, retaining their charity towards those 
whom they left behind, that they are anxious for their salvation, 

* On the subject of Prayers for the Dead there occurs an interesting pas- 
sage in St. Ephrem of Edessa, which appears to have escaped the notice of 
my friend. In a work entitled his Testament, this pious Fathei thus speaks .- 
— " My brethren, come to me, and prepare me for my departure, for my 
strength is wholly gone. Go along with me in psalms and in your prayers, 
and please constantly to make oblations for me. When the thirtieth day 
shall be completed, then remember me ; for the dead are helped by the offer- 
ings of the living. — Now listen with patience to what I shall mention from 
the Scriptures. Moses bestowed blessings on Reuben after the third genera- 
tion (Deut. xxxiii. 6. ;) but, if the Dead are not aided, why was he blessed ? 
Again, if they be insensible, hear what the apostle says :- -' If the dead rise 
not again at all, wiry are they then baptized for them V n (J Cor. \v. 29.) 



30 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



and that they assist them by their prayers and their meditation 
with God. For it is written in the books of the Maccabees, 
' This is Jeremiah, the prophet of God, who always prays for 
the people.'— Lift. 3. in Cant. Cantic. 'I will fall down on my 
knees, and, not presuming, on account of my crimes, to present 
my prayer to God, I will invoke all the saints to my assistance. 
O ye saints of Heaven, I beseech you with a sorrow full of 
sighs and tears, fall at the feet of the Lord of Mercies for me, a 
miserable sinner.'" — Lib. 2. de Job. 

Cyprian. — " Let us be mindful of one another in our prayers, 
with one mind, and with one heart, in this world, and in the next, 
let us always pray, with mutual charity relieving our sufferings 
and afflictions. And may the charity of him who, by the divine 
favor, shall first depart hence, still persevere before the Lord; 
may his prayer, for our brethren and sisters, be unceasing." — 
De Habitu Virg. 

Athanasius. — " Hear now, oh daughter of David ; incline 
thine ear to our prayers. — We raise our cry to thee. Remember 
us, oh ! most Holy Virgin, and for the feeble eulogiums we give 
thee, grant us great gifts from the treasures of thy graces, thou, 
who art full of grace. — Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is 
with thee. Queen and Mother of God, intercede for us." — Serm. 
in Annunt. 

Hilary. — " According to Raphael, speaking to Tobias, there 
are Angels who serve before the face of God, and who convey 
to him the prayers of the suppliant. It is not the character of 
the Deity that stands in need of this intercession, but our in- 
firmity does. — God is not ignorant of any thing that we do ; but 
the weakness of man, to supplicate and to obtain, calls for the 
ministry of the spiritual intercession." — In Psalm 129. 

Basil. — (In celebrating the Feast of the Forty Martyrs.) " O 
ye common guardians of the human race, co-operators in our 
prayers, most powerful messengers, stars of the world and 
flowers of Churches, let us join our prayers with yours." — 
Horn. 19. 

Ephrem of Edessa. — " I entreat you, oh! Holy Martyrs, who 
have suffered so much for the Lord, that you would intercede 
for us with Him that he bestow his grace on us." — Encom. in 
SS. Mart. " We fly to thy patronage, Holy Mother of God; 
protect and guard us, under the wings of thy mercy and kind- 
ness. — Most merciful God, through the intercession of the most 
Blessed Virgin Mary, and of all the Angels, and of all the Saints, 
show pity to thy creature." — Serm. de. Laud. B. Mar Virg. 

RELICS AA'D IMAGES 

Hilary. — " The holy blood of the Martyrs is every where 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



received, and their venerable bones daily bear witness. L. 
contra Constant. 

Basil.—" If any one suffer for the name of Christ, his re- 
mains are deemed precious : and, if any one touch the bones of 
a martyr, he becomes partaker, in some degree, of his holiness, 
on account of the grace residing in them. Wherefore, 'pre- 
cious in the sight of God is the death of his Saints.' " — Serm. in 
Psalm 115. 

" I receive the Apostles, the Prophets and the Martyrs. 1 
invoke them to pray for me, and that by their intercession God 
may be merciful to me and forgive my transgressions. For this 
reason I revere and honor their images, especially since we are 
taught to do so by the tradition of the holy Apostles ; and so far 
from these being forbidden us, they appear in our Churches." — 
Ep. ad Julian.* 

Ephrem. — " The grace of the divine spirit, which works mira. 
cles in them, ever resides in the Relics of the Saints." — In 
Encom. omnium Mart. 

Ambrose. — " I honor, therefore, in the body of the Martyr, 
the wounds that he received in the name of Christ ; I honor the 
memory of that virtue which shall never die ; I honor those 
ashes which the confession of Faith has consecrated : I honor 
in them the seeds of eternity ; I honor that body which has 
taught me to love the Lord, and not to fear death for his sake." 
— Serm. 55. 

Chrysostom. — " Next to the power of speech, the monuments 
of Saints are best adapted, when we look on them, to excite us 
to the imitation of their virtues. Here when any one stands, 
he feels himself seized by a certain force; the view of the shrine 
strikes on his heart ; he is affected, as if he that there lies were 
present, and offered up prayers for him. Thus does a certain 
alacrity come over him, and, changed almost to another man, he 
quits the place. For this reason, then, has God left, us the Re- 
mains of the Saints."— Lift, contra Gent. "That which neither 
riches nor gold can effect, the Relics of Martyrs can. Gold 
never dispelled diseases nor warded off death ; but the bones of 
Martyrs have done both. In the days of our forefathers, the 
former happened ; the latter in our own." — Homil. 67, de St. 
Drosid. Mart. 

Gregory of Nyssa. — (In his Oration on the Feast of the Martyr 
Theodorus.) " When any one enters such a place as this, where 

* In quoting this Epistle to Julian, as from the pen of St. Basil, my young 
friend has not shown his usual accuracy. The fragment from which the 
above passage is taken, though extant among the Acts of the Second Nicene 
Council, is given up, I believe, as spurious, by the most judicious Catholic 
writers ; and even the zealous Baronius, though he produces the fragment 
forbears cautiously from laying any stress upon it, as authority. 



3^ 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



the memory of this just man and his relics are preserved, his 
mind is first struck, while ho views the structure and all its 
ornaments, with the general magnificence that breaks upon him. 
The artist has here shown his skill in the figures of animals and 
the airy sculpture of the stone, while the painter's hand is most 
conspicuous in delineating the high achievements of the Martyr* 

The figure of Christ is also beheld looking 

down upon the scene." 

JSilus. — " In the chancel of the most sacred temple, towards 

the east let there be one and only one Cross Let 

the sacred temple be filled with pictures well executed by the most 
celebrated artists, representing the most remarkable events of the 
Old and New Testaments ; that the unlettered and those who 
are incapable of reading the divine Scriptures may, by the sight 
of the picture, be instructed in the virtuous deeds of those who 
have served the true God, according to his own will and com- 
mand."— Lib. 4, Ep. 61. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Invocation of the Virgin. — Gospel of the Infancy, &c. — Louis XI. — Bona 
ventura. — St. Ambrose, St. Basil, and Doctor Doyle. 

In the foregoing list, containing a few of those "abominations" 
of Popery, which I found sanctioned by the highest authorities 
of the Christian Church, there is one placed under the head of 
" Invocation of Saints," to which I had not before adverted, 
namely, the devotion (or, as Protestants will have it,) idolatry 
paid by Papists to the Blessed Virgin. There appears no doubt 
that this worship, within the due bounds to which all rational 
Catholics would confine it, formed a part of the devotions of 
Christians, from the very first ages of the Church. In the 
Second Century we find Irenaeus, the great light of that age, 
attributing such power to the intercession of the Virgin with 
God, as to suppose her the advocate, in heaven, for the fallen 
mother of mankind; Eve. The Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus, 
a work referred to the same period, and which, though mani- 
fest!} 7 an imposture,* may, at least, be depended upon, as an 
echo of the tone prevalent among the orthodox of its times, in 
relating the circumstances which took place previously to our 
Lord's nativity, gives to the Virgin simply the name of " Mary," 

* With this Gospel another apocryphal work, of the same high antiquity, 
is usually joined, to wit, the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, in which it is de- 
clared that the object of her espousals with Joseph was, not that he might 
make her his wife, but that he might be the guardian of her perpetual Vir- 
ginity ; the High Priest having said to him, M Thou art the person chosen to 
take the Virgin of the Lo v d, to keep her for him." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



33 



but immediately after that event, styles her the " Divine Mary," 
and adds that Churches were in those times dedicated to her 
honor * 

Li the irritation which, I own, I could not help feeling at the 
discovery of this fresh proof of Popery, in the early ages of the 
Church, I found myself secretly wishing that it might also be in 
my power to detect, in those times, the same extravagant follies 
respecting the worship of the Virgin, which, in after ages, 
brought such discredit upon the refgion that was made respon- 
sible for them, and by which alone, indeed, most Protestants 
form their judgment of the Catholic faith on this subject.")* 1 
allude not so much to the gross extravagances of those who have 
installed the Virgin as a Fourth Person of the Godhead, or to 
such superstitious follies as that of Louis XI, who, by a formal 
contract, made over to the Mother of God all right and title in 
the fee and privileges of the Comte de Boulogne, — not so much 
to these blasphemous absurdities do I allude, as to that injudicious 
excess of zeal which led Bonaventura and other distinguished 
Catholics to claim for the Virgin a rank in the scale of superior 
beings much higher than either reason or true piety would assign 
to her.J 

So far from finding, however, in the first ages, any sanction 
for such pretensions, I soon discovered that though, even then, 

* The minister, Jurieu, contended that the claims of the Virgin to invo- 
cation or worship were not admitted till after the decision of the Council 
of Ephesus, which, in opposition to Nestorius, pronounced Mary to be the 
Mother of God. It is well answered, however, by Bossuet, that the very 
Church in which that Council was held bore testimony to the honors already 
paid to the Virgin by its having been dedicated to her name. He refers 
also to a circumstance which, long before the sitting of that Council, St. 
Gregory of Nazianzum had related of a female martyr in the third century, 
who prayed to the Blessed Mary " to aid a virgin who was in peril." 

f The Lutheran Goetzius, assuming charitably that female saints, — Mary, 
Anne, Catherine, Margaret, &c, (as he enumerates them,) — form the prin- 
cipal object of worship with the Catholics, calls their faith "a womanish 
Religion" — religio muliebris. See his Meletemata Annaebergensia. 

I The absurdity of the learned Lipsius (one of those many literati, whose 
whole due of fame is, as it were, discounted to them while living) in be- 
queathing his best fur-cloak to the Virgin on his deathbed, drew down from 
the Netherland wits a burst of ridicule upon his memory, which the defence 
of the bequest by his friend Wowerius (Assertio Lipsiani Donari) was but 
ill calculated to extinguish. 

Of the lengths to which some pious enthusiasts in the cause of the Virgin 
have gone, many curious instances might be collected. For example, the 
following Thesis, put forth by the Rdcollets of Liege, in 1676. — "Frequens 
confessio et communio, et cultus B. Virginis, v^tiam in iis, qui gentiliter vi- 
vunt, sunt signum predestinationis ;" and, still more absurd, the assertion 
of a Portuguese Jesuit, Francis Mendoza, " impossible esse ut B. Virginis 
cultor in aeternum damnetur." These are, to be sure, wretched extrava- 
gances ; but if the excess or perversion of a religious belief is to be assumed 
as an argument against the belief itself, far more vital points of faith than the 
interc essorial power of the Virgin may suffer by such logic. 



34 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



some abuses of this worship had intruded themselves, the great 
teachers of Christian doctrine rebuked and denounced them as 
idolatrous : nor could there be given, perhaps, a more faithful 
exposition of all that the Catholics of the present day think and 
feel on this subject than is to be found in the following remarks 
which the great antagonist of heresies, Epiphanius, directed 
against some female heretics of his time by whom a more than 
due share of honor was paid to the Virgin : — " Her body (he 
says) was, I own, holy, but she was no God. She continued a 
Virgin, but she is not proposed for our adoration ; — she herself 
adoring him who, having descended from heaven and the bosom 

of his Father, was born of her flesh Though, 

therefore, she was a chosen vessel, and endowed with eminent 
sanctity, still she is a woman, partaking of our common nature, 
but deserving of the highest honors shown to the Saints of God. 
— She stands before them all on account of the heavenly mystery 
accomplished in her. But we adore no saint : and as this wor- 
ship is not given to angels, much less can it be allowed to the 
daughter of Ann. — Let Mary, therefore, be honored; but the 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost alone be adored : let no one adore 
Mary." — Adv. Collyridianos* Hcer. 59. 

Precisely such, as I conceive, is the wide and essential dis- 
tinction which a Catholic divine of our own days would draw 
between adoration and honor ; — between the worship due only 
to God, and that devout veneration which, in common with all 
Christian antiquity, we should offer to her whom an inspired 
voice pronounced " Blessed among women," and " the Mother 
of the Lord." 

In short, looking back from the point where I had now ar- 
rived to the whole course and results of my search through 
those ages, I found myself forced to confess, that the Popery of 
the nineteenth century differs in no respect from the Christianity 
of the third and fourth ; and that if St. Ambrose, St. Basil, and 
a few more such " flowers of Churches," had been able to bor- 
row the magic nightcaps of their contemporaries, the Seven 
Sleepers, and were now, after a nap of about fifteen centuries, 
just opening their eyes in the town of Carlow, they would find 
in the person of Dr. Doyle, the learned Bishop of Leighlin and 
Ferns, not only an Irishman whose acquaintance even they might 
be proud to make, but a fellow- Catholic, every iota of whose 
creed would be found to correspond exactly with their own. 

* These heretics, who were chiefly women, used to offer up to the Virgin 
a particular kind of cakp, or bun, called in Greek Collyris. Their grand 
offering, however, was a loaf, which, at a stated season of the year, they pre- 
sented to her with much solemnity, and then each of them partook of the 
oblation. In this ceremony the women performed the office of Priesthood. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



35 



CHAPTER IX. 

Frayers for the Dead.— Purgatory.— Penitential discipline. — Confession. — 
Origen.— St. Ambrose. — Apostrophe to the Shade of Father O'H. * *. 

Among those articles of Popery which I have enumerated as 
pre-existing in the creed of the Primitive Church, there are two, 
rather implied than mentioned, namely, a belief in Purgatory 
and auricular Confession, concerning which I have to offer a 
few brief remarks. 

The solemn usage of praying for the Dead can be founded 
only on the belief that there exists a middle state of purification 
and suffering through which souls pass after death, and from 
which the prayers of the faithful may aid in delivering them. 
The antiquity, therefore, of the use of Prayers for the Dead 
(and we trace them through all the most ancient Liturgies) 
sufficiently proves to us how ancient was the belief on which they 
are founded. From the Second Book of the Maccabees (taking 
these Books merely in the Protestant view of them, as an un- 
canonical but authentic record) we learn that the ancient Jews, 
on this point, held the same faith as the Catholics : — " It is 
therefore a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead, 
that they may be loosed from their sins." 

We cannot wonder that such a belief should be thus ancient, 
for assuredly none can be more natural ; nor, on the other hand, 
can any thing be less consistent either with our knowledge of 
human nature, or our notions of the divine, than such an absence 
of all gradation, both in reward and punishment, as the want of 
an intermediate state between heaven and hell must imply. 
What the Protestant divine, Paley, has said on the subject of 
Purgatory, appears to me to be founded on such sentiments as 
both reason and nature approve : " Who can bear," he asks, 
" the thought of dwelling in everlasting torments ! Yet who 
can say that a God everlastingly just will not inflict them 1 The 
mind of man seeks for some resource : it finds one only in con- 
ceiving that some temporary punishment, after death, may purify 
the soul from its moral pollutions, and make it at last acceptable 
even to a Deity infinitely pure." 

Fully agreeing with Paley on this point, it was with some 
pleasure I now discovered that, from Justin Martyr down to 
Basil and Ambrose, all the Fathers of the four first ages con- 
cur in opinion as to the existence of such an intermediate state ; 
the greater number of them interpreting a remarkable passage 
of St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 13, 14, 15) as denoting expressly some 
region of purgation for the soul, where " the fire shall try every 
man's work of what sort it is," and where, as Origen explains 



36 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



the passage, " each crime shall, in proportion to its character, 
experience a just degree of punishment." Referring to the 
same passage of the Apostle, St. Ambrose says, " From hence 
it may be collected, that the same man is saved in part, and is 
condemned in part ;" and, again, in a Commentary on this 
Epistle, he remarks : — " The Apostle said, < He shall be saved, 
yet so as by fire,' in order that his salvation be not understood 
to be without pain. He shows that he shall be saved indeed, 
but that he shall undergo the pain of fire, and be thus purified ; 
not like the unbelieving and wicked man who shall be punished 
in everlasting fire." — Comment, in 1 Ep. ad Cor. With similar 
views it was maintained by St. Hilary (and Origen seems to 
have been of the same opinion) that, after the day of Judgment, 
all — even the Blessed Virgin herself — must alike pass through 
this fire, to purify them from their sins. 

The system of Penitential Discipline,* of which Confession 
forms one of the most important parts, was, as we learn from 
the ecclesiastical historian, Socrates, observed by the Bishops of 
Rome from the very earliest times ; and the public penance of 
the Emperor Theodosius, in the great Church of Milan, proves 
what deference continued to be paid to the same spiritual ordi- 
nance, after Christianity had become the established religion of 
the Empire. Far different, however, were the notions of Re- 
pentance prevailing among the early Christians from those that 
have since been taught by the Apostles of the Reformation, who, 
in abolishing Confession, Penitential Fasting, &c, and getting 
rid of all that slow, humbling process of self-accusation and 
penance, by which the Catholic Church has, through all ages, 
disciplined her erring children, seem to have thought of little 
else than consulting the comfort of the sinner, and rendering his 
road to salvation short and easy. " There is yet," says Origen, 
" a more severe and arduous pardon of sin by penance, when 
the sinner washes his couch with his tears, and when he blushes 

* As, in this world, the abuse of all good gifts follows as naturally on their 
ise as shadows do on lights, it can little surpiise us to find that the Sacra- 
oient of Penance was as much perverted from its true intention and spirit by 
the weak Catholics of other days, as it is, and will be, perverted by the same 
description of Catholics to the end of time. The existence of such false no- 
tions of Penance, in his own days, is thus noticed and reprehended by St. 
Ambrose : — " There are some who ask for penance, that they may be at once 
restored to communion. These do not so much desire to be loosed as to bind 
the Priest, for they do not unburden their own consciences, but they burden 
his. . . . Thus you may see persons walking about in white garments, who 
ought to be in tears for having defiled that color of grace and innocence. 
Others there are who, provided they abstain from the Holy Sacraments, 
fancy they are doing penance. Others, while they have this in view, con- 
clude they a:e licensed to sin, not aware that penance is the remedy, not the 
provocative of sin," — De Panit. I. 2. c. 9. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



37 



not to disclose his sin to the Priest of the Lord, and to ask a 
remedy.* Thus is fulfilled what the Apostle says, ' Is any man 
sick among you, let him bring in the Priests of the Church ' * 
(James v. 14.) 

Of St. Ambrose it is said, by his secretary and biographer, 
that " as often as any one, in doing penance, confessed his faults 
to him, he wept so as to draw tears from the sinner. He seemed 
to take part in every act of sorrow. But, as to the occasions 
or causes of the crimes which they confessed, these he revealed 
to no one but God, with whom he interceded ; leaving this good 
example to his successors in the Priesthood, that they should be 
intercessors with God, not accusers before men." — Paulin. in 
Vita Ambros. The writings, indeed, of that age, abound with 
affecting remarks upon the sacred and delicate duty which a 
Confessor has to perform, and the consoling balm he may apply 
to wounded and repentant spirits. " Show me bitter tears (says 
St. Gregory of Nyssa) that I may mingle mine with yours. Im- 
part your trouble to the Priest, as to your Father ; he will be 
touched with a sense of your misery. Show to him what is con- 
cealed, without blushing ; open the secrets of your soul, as if 
you were showing to a physician a hidden disorder ; he will 
take care of your honor and of your cure." — Serm. de Poenit. 

How often, in reading such passages, did I call to mind my 
own innocent and Popery-believing days, when, as the regulai 
season for Confession returned, I used to set off, early in the 

morning, to street Chapel, trembling all over with awe at 

the task that was before me, but still firmly resolved to tell the 
worst, without disguise. How vividly do I even, at this moment, 
remember kneeling down by the Confessional, and feeling my 
heart beat quicker, as the sliding-panel in the side opened, and 

I saw the meek and venerable head of the kind Father O'H 

stooping down to hear my whispered list of sins. The paternal 
look of the old man, — the gentleness of his voice, even in rebuke, 
— the encouraging hopes he gave of mercy as the sure reward 
of contrition and reformation, — all these recollections came 
freshly over my mind, as I now read the touching language 
employed by some of the Fathers on this subject ; language 
3ttch as the following, from the Homilies of Origen, which, 
plough written when Christianity was little more than two hun- 
dred years old, is as applicable to many a Catholic Confessor 
of our own times, as if indited but yesterday. "Only let the 
seiner carefully consider to whom he should confess his sin, what 
is the character of the physician ; — if he be one who will be 
» eak with the weak, who will weep with the sorrowful, and who 

* St. Augustin also writes : "Our merciful God wills us to confess in thi? 
world that we may not be confounded in the other " — Horn. 20. 

4 



38 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



understands the discipline of condolence and fellow-feeling : so 
that when his skill shall be known, and his pity felt, you may 
follow what he shall advise." — Homil. 2. in Psalm 27. " If 
we discover our sins, not only to God, but to those who may 
thus apply a remedy to our wounds and iniquities, our sins will 
be effaced by him who said, ' I have blotted out thy iniquities 
as a cloud, and thy sins as a mist.' " — Homil. 17. in Lucarn. 

Shade of my revered Pastor, couldst thou have looked down 
upon me, in the midst of my folios, how it would have grieved 
thy meek spirit to see the humble little visitor of thy confessional, 
— him whom sometimes thou hast doomed, for his sins, to read 
the Seven Penitential Psalms daily, — to see him forgetting so soon 
the docility of those undoubting days, and setting himself up, 
God help him, as controvertist and Protestant ! 



CHAPTER X. 

The Eucharist. — A glimpse of Protestantism. — Type, Figure, Sign, &c. — 
Glimpse lost again. — St. Cyril of Jerusalem. — St. Cyprian. — St. Jerome 
—St. Chrysostom. — Tertullian. 

In tracing the doctrines of Popery through the third and 
fourth ages, I have reserved, as may have been remarked, one 
of the most important of them ail, — that relating to the Eucharist, 
— for separate consideration ; and this I have done not merely 
on account of the great importance of the doctrine itself, but 
because on this point alone could I at all flatter myself with 
having discovered any little glimmerings of that Protestant 
Christianity of which I was in search. 

The two first centuries, I saw clearly, must be given up as 
desperate ; the language employed upon this subject by Ignatius, 
Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, having abundantly convinced me 
that, in those apostolic times, the literal or Popish interpretation 
of the words, " This is my body," was <the accepted doctrine ; 
and that the Christians of the Primitive Church believed not 
only in the Real, corporal Presence, but in the miraculous change 
of substance after consecration. In the present depressed state 
of my hopes, however, — lowered as they were to the freezing 
temperature, — I would have compounded gladly for a sample of 
Protestantism even of a much less ancient date ; and it was 
.herefore with considerable satisfaction I had discovered in some 
writers of the third century the use of such expressions, in 
speaking of the Eucharist, as " Type," " Antitype," " Figure," 
&c, which seemed to afford a sort of escape from the difficulties 
of, a real Presence into the vague and figurative substitute foi 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



39 



that miracle which, on the principle of believing " made easy," 
lias been adopted by Protestants. 

My seif-gratulation, however, on this discovery, was but of 
very short duration. In the first place, I soon found that this 
use of the words k< Type," " Antitype," "Sign," &c. 5- is not con- 
fined to those few Fathers to whom the Protestants look .up as 
authority, but that the same terms have been also applied to the 
Eucharist by several of those writers whose real opinions re- 
specting the nature of that Sacrament are known to have been as 
transubstantiatory as Popish heart could desire. Thus the great 
Catechist, Cyril of Jerusalem, who, in his doctrine concerning 
the Real Presence, goes the full lengths of all that Rome has ever 
asserted on the subject, yet applies to the Eucharist the word 
•'Type," and that in a manner which seems to bear out the 
opinions of those who think that the term, as thus employed by 
the Fathers, denoted but the external appearance, or accidents, 
of the Eucharistic elements. " In the type of bread (says Cyril) 
is given to thee the body, and in the type of wine is given to 
thee the blood."* In the same manner, in one of those Litur- 
gies which go under the name of St. Basil, we find the bread 
and wine offered under the name of Antitypes, while in the 
prayer that follows, the Holy Spirit is invoked to come down 
and bless the gifts and " make\ the bread the body and the wine 
the blood of Christ." 

If we may rely, indeed, on the authenticity of a passage, ad- 
duced by Bullinger from some MS. writings of Origen, — and 1 
see no reason to doubt the honesty of the Reformer, in this 
instance, — it would appear, that Origen foresaw the heresy 
that was likely to arise on this point, and thus, by referring to 
ihe direct words of our Saviour, endeavored to guard against 
it. — " He did not say (observes Origen) ' this is a symbol,' but 
'this is a body;' — indicating thereby that nobody must suppose 
it to be a type."^: Another passage, still more strongly to the 
same purport, is quoted by the same eminent Protestant, Bullin- 
ger, from the writings of Magnes, a Priest of Jerusalem, who 
flourished in the third century : — " The Eucharist is not a type 
of the body and blood, as some men, defective in their under- 
standing, have babbled, but rather the body and blood. "§ 

But, whatever may be thought of the authenticity of these 
passages, I found, to my sorrow, that the Catholic view of the 

* Ev tvtt'jJ yap aprov 6t6orai coi ao^ia xat zv rvncj oivov StSorai <roi atfxa. 

f AvaSei^ai, which, as Suicerus acknowledges, signifies here to render, 01 
make. 

\ Ov yap £tT£ tovto £<tti ovufioXov, aXA' tovto tan (j'-ijxa' Sciktikojs, Iva /ir] vomty 
TIS TV170V eivai. 

§ Ovk eanv Ev^afHOTia twos tov ffiojiaTOS Kai rov aiuaros, wnzp rives eppax^Kx*- 
ir)<7iiv rrc-r\pij)jitvoi tov vow, /taWov Se oujua xai a ma. — vidvers. Theostheneni. 



40 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



matter did not want the aid of any such questionable authorities 
So far, indeed, from considering the Eucharist to be, itself 
merely typical or symbolical, the early Christians, on the con 
trary, held it to be the accomplishment or reality of what had 
been but typical, under the Old Law. In the bread and wine 
offered by Melchisedek, the " Priest of the Most High God," they 
saw the figure or shadow of that Sacrifice which was to be in 
sdtuted, from the same elements, in the Eucharist, — the type 
in short, of that great mystery of which the Eucharist is the 
reality and the verity. " That the blessing given to Abrahair 
(says Cyprian) might be properly celebrated, the representation 
of the Sacrifice of Christ, appointed in bread and wine, preceded 
it ; which our Lord, perfecting and fulfilling it, himself made 
offering of in bread and wine ; and thus he, who is the plenitude, 
fulfilled the truth of the prefigured image." (Ep. 63, ad Ce 
cilium.) — Conceiving the show-bread of the Temple to have been 
also a prefiguration of the Eucharist, St. Jerome says, "There 
is as much difference betwixt the loaves offered to God in the 
Old Law and the body of Jesus Christ, as betwixt the shadow 
and the body, betwixt the image and the truth." (Comment, b 
Ep. ad Tit.) 

It having been evidently the belief of the early orthodox Chris 
tians that the Eucharist had been prefigured in the offerings of 
the Old Law, to assert that they held this sacrament itself to b» 
typical, is to impute to them the absurdity of saying that it is bu i 
a type of types, a mere shadow of shadows ;* — thus sinking 
their estimate of the importance of this Institution to even s 
lower and more evanescent point of value than it has been re 

* In a certain sense, and as far as it does not affect or qualify the belief 
in a Real Presence, the Catholic may with perfect consistency apply tht 
words Figure or Symbol to the Eucharist, seeing that every sacrament, as 
such, must be an outward sign, and consequently a Figure or Symbol. In 
this sense it is that Pascal understands the terms in question, used by thf 
Fathers ; and as the view taken by so great a man of an article of faith so 
disputed cannot but be interesting, I shall here transcribe his own charac- 
teristically clear words : — " Nous croyons que la substance du pain etant 
changee en celle du corps de notre Seigneur J£sus Christ, il est present rdel- 
lement au Saint Sacrement. Voila unne des vdritgs. Une autre est que c€ 
Sacrement est aussi une figure de la croix et de la gloire, et une commemo- 
ration des deux. Voila la foi Catholique, qui comprend ces deux v&ites qui 
semblent opposees. 

" L'heresie d'aujourd'bui, ne concevant pas que ce Sacrement contieul 
tout ensemble, et la presence de Jesus Christ et sa figure, et qu'il soit Sacri 
fice, et Commemoration de Sacrifice, croit qu'on ne peut admettre 1'une de 
ces vertes sans exclure 1'autre. 

"Par cette raison ils s'attachenl a ce point, que ce Sacrement est figuratif ; 
er en cela ils ne sont pas he>etiques. Ils pensent que nous excluons ceu^- 
verite ; et de la vient qu'ils nous font tant d'objections sur les passages des 
Peres qui le disent. Enfin, ils nient la presence rgelie ; et en cela Us sont 
hor4ticjues." — Pensees, Sec. Partie. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



41 



luced to by modern Sacramentarians and Arminians. That the 
rery reverse, however, of all this was the case, I have just clearly 
shown ; and how precious they held the assurance that, in place 
of the types and shadows of old, they had, in the Sacrifice of 
the New Law, a reality and a substance,* w r ill appear from the 
language, ever glowing, of Chrysostom on this subject. — Assert- 
ing the Eucharist to be the accomplishment of the typical Pass- 
over, he says, " How much greater holiness becomes thee, oh ! 
Christian, who hast received greater symbols than the Holy of 
Holies contained ;— for you have not the Cherubim but the Lord 
of the Cherubim dwelling in you ; — you have not the Urn, and the 
Manna, and the Tables of Stone, and the Rod of Aaron, but the 
body and blood of our Lord." (In Psalm 133.) Again, Horn. 
46, he says — " This blood, even in the type, washed away sin. 
If it had so great power in the type, — if Death were so affrighted 
by the shadow, tell how it must be affrighted at the Verity itself. 
Truly tremendous are the mysteries of the Church ; truly tre- 
mendous are our altars !" 

The truth is, that the use of the words Type, Figure, Sign, 
&c, as applied to the Eucharist, is to be found neither in the 
Scriptures, nor in any of the pure Christian writers of the t\v^ 
first centuries. In the Scriptures, the Eucharistic elements arc 
usually denoted by the words " body" and blood and the same 
unqualified and unevasive language descended from the Apostles 
to their immediate successors in the Church; among whom, "to 
offer," " to receive," « to eat and drink the body and blood of 
Christ," were as familiar phrases as " to receive the Sacrament," 
or " to administer the Communion," are among ourselves. 

With Tertullian may be said to have commenced that change 
in the public language of the Fathers on this subject, — that cir- 
cumlocution, and, not unfrequeiidy, ambiguity, in their notices 
of this mystery, — of which before there had been no example, 
and of which the Protestants have, in their despair, taken ad- 
vantage as affording some shadow of plausibility to their argu- 
ments against the true Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist. The 
system of secresy to which such ambiguities and, as it would 
seem, inconsistencies in these holy writers may be traced, farms 

* " We have an altar," says St. Paul, " whereof they have no right to eat 
which serve the tabernacle." — And yet (observes St. Thomas Aquinas on 
this passage' those who served the tabernacle had the figure of Jesus Christ 
in their Sacrifices. Where, then, would be the advantage that the Law of 
Grace professes to have over the Synagogue ? If the Manna of the desert 
and the Eucharist are both alike but the image of his body, wherefore does 
the Saviour mark out that essential difference between them ~t the former 
wai but a food miraculously formed in the air which gave not life, while the 
latter is " the bread which cometh from heaven," and which if a y man eat 
of, "he shall live for ever." (John vi.) — See Conferences sur Ls Mysteres, 
torn. 2, p. 279. 

4* 



42 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



too remarkable a feature in the annals of the early Church, and 
is, indeed, too closely connected with the history of this and other 
Christian doctrines, to be dismissed without receiving some fur- 
ther consideration. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Discipline of the Secret. — Concealment of the Doctrine of the Real Presence 
— St. Paul. — St. Clement of Alexandria. — Apostolical Constitutions.— 
System of secresy, when most observed. 

The system to which I have referred, at the close of the pre 
ceding chapter, as being the principal cause of that restraint and 
ambiguity which are observable in the language of some of tin 
Fathers concerning the Eucharist, is well known among the 
learned by the name of the Discipline of the Secret, and by muuy 
is supposed to have been of apostolic origin. Among those afc 
leged imitations of the religious policy of the Pagans with which 
the Primitive Christians and the Papists have alike been re- 
proached, one of the most striking, as regards the former, in 
that distinction drawn in the early Church between the initiated 
and the non-initiated, — or, in other words, the baptized and the 
unbaptized, — and the sacred care with which the latter of these 
two classes were excluded from all knowledge of those more 
recondite and awful doctrines of the Faith, in which (to use the 
language of the Apostle) "the wisdom of God in a mystery" 
lies concealed. 

In like manner, too, as among the Heathen Initiations, there 
were certain stages through which the candidate had to pass, 
not only for the purposes of discipline and instruction, but to 
stimulate also his ardor in the pursuit, before he arrived at the 
full and crowning close of his task, so in these Mysteries of the 
Church, and declaredly for the same reasons, a series of grada- 
tions was established through which the Catechumens and Peni- 
tents were obliged slowly to advance to that highest station wher$ 
they were at length thought worthy of being initiated into the 
Faith, and the great Mystery, the Eucharist, was for the first 
time communicated to them. Till this period, not only were the 
Catechumens prohibited from being present at the celebration of 
that Sacrament, but all notion of its nature was carefully with, 
held from them, nor was it ever suffered to be mentioned, except 
obscurely, in their presence. 

The chief object of all this secresy was to guard from the 
profaning scoff's of the infidel such doctrines as the ear of Faith 
** r as alone worthy to listen to ; and the authority alleged for its 
adoption was no less sacred a one than the injunction of Chris! 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



43 



himself: — "Place not holy things before dogs, nor pearls before 
swine." That the Apostles, in their capacity of " Stewards of 
the Mysteries of God," observed a similar rule of secresy, was 
the current opinion of the Fathers ; and the words of St. Paul 
(1 Cor. iii, 1, 2,) are often adduced by them to prove that already, 
in his time, this distinction between the Catechumens and the 
Faithful was in force. " And I, brethren, could not speak unto 
you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal persons, even as unto 
babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, 
for hitherto ye were not able to bear it ; neither yet now are ye 
able." 

" If, therefore, (says St. Clement of Alexandria, in comment- 
ing on this passage,) Milk be said by the Apostle to belong to 
babes, and Meat to them that are perfect, Milk will be understood 
to be Catechizing, as the first kind of food of the soul, but Meat 
the conceded Theories" How strongly St. Jerome also was 
of opinion that St. Paul acted upon this principle, appears from 
his reply to his friend Evagrius, who had consulted him respect- 
ing the meaning of an obscure passage of the Apostle with regard 
to the sacrifice of Melchisedek : — " You are not to suppose (says 
St. Jerome) that Paul could not easily have explained himself; 
but the time was not come for such explanation. He sought to 
persuade the Jews, and not the Faithful, to whom the mystery 
might have been delivered without reserve." 

Did the curious Collection, known by the name of the Apos. 
tolical Constitutions, possess any such claim to a rank among 
scriptural writings as Whiston labors to establish for it, the apos- 
tolic origin of the Discipline of the Secret could be no longer 
doubtful ; — these Constitutions having been professedly collected, 
under such a law of secresy, by the fellow-laborer of St. Paul, 
Clement, as he is himself thus made to declare : — "The Consti- 
tutions, dedicated to you, the Bishops, by me, Clement, in Eight 
Books ; — which it is not fitting to publish before all, because of 
the Mysteries contained in them." 

But, though the authenticity claimed by Whiston, with such 
profuse waste of learning, for this book, be now generally dis- 
allowed, the work still furnishes a proof that, in the third or 
fourth century when it was fabricated, a belief prevailed that 
those unwritten traditions and doctrines over which the Church 
drew a veil of silence had descended to her, under the same 
religious law of secresy, from the Apostles themselves. " We 
receive," says St. Basil, "the dogmas transmitted to us by writing, 
and those which have descended to us from the Apostles, beneath 

the 7eil and mystery of oral tradition The Apostles 

and Fathers who prescribed from the beginning certain rites to 
the Church, knew how to preserve the dignity of the Mysteries 



44 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



by the secresy and silence in which they enveloped them. For 
what is open to the ear and the eye is no longer mysterious. 
For this reason several things have been handed down to us 
without writing, lest the vulgar, too familiar with our dogmas 
should pass from being accustomed to them to the contempt of 
them." — Be Spirit. Sanct. c. 27. 

Upon the controversy which is known to have been main- 
tained among the learned as to the precise time when the Disci- 
pline of the Secret was first introduced into the Church, it is not 
my intention here to dwell. Some, as we have seen, trace its 
origin as far back as the time of the Apostles,* while others 
suppose it to have been first practised towards the close of the 
second century, and others, again, contrary to all authority, date 
its commencement so low down as the fourth. The truth seems 
to be that the principle of this policy was acted upon, in the 
Christian Church, from its very beginning. So strongly has not 
only St. Paul, but our Saviour himself, inculcated a sacred re- 
serve in promulgating the Mysteries of the Faith, that there can 
be no doubt the succeeding teachers of the Church would, in 
this, as in all things else, follow their Divine Master's precept. 

But though, as a principle, this reverential guard over the 
Mysteries was observed, doubtless, from the very first rise of 
Christianity, it does not appear to have been strictly enforced, 
as a rule of discipline, till about the close of the second century. 
The curiosity, and, still more, the bitter enmity excited by the 
rapid spread of a religion founded wholly, as it appeared, on 
mystery, but whose progress was, in unbelieving eyes, the greatest 
mystery of all, rendered increased caution necessary on the part 
of its ministers ; and the divine precept by which they were 
enjoined to hide the " holy things" of the Faith from unbelievers 
began, about this time, to be acted upon by them with a degree 
of jealous strictness proportionate to the prying insolence and 
violence by which they were encompassed. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Doctrine of the Trinity. — St. Justin. — Irenseus. — Apparent heterodoxy of the 
Fathers of the Third Century. — Accounted for by the Discipline of the 
Secret. — Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, &c. 

It has been asserted by more than one learned writer, that 
the doctrine of the Trinity was not included among the mys- 

* Among moderns, Schelstrate has contended most strenuously for tl* 
apostolic origin of the Secret, while, in opposition to him, Tcntzelius mo 
others refer its rise to about th^ close of the second century. 



IN SEARCH OF A RFLTGION. 



45 



teries to which the protection of this rule of secresy was ex- 
tended.* But such an assumption is not only inconsistent with 
the main objects for which such a rule was established, but is 
also, as it will not be difficult to show, at variance with fact. It 
was, indeed, the -pious horror of exposing such high mysteries 
as that of the Trinity to the scoffs and, what was still worse, the 
misrepresentations of the Gentiles, that formed the chief motive 
of the Christian Pastors for the policy which they adopted, — a 
policy which, on some points (such as that of the Seven Sacra- 
ments,!) * s supposed to have led them to preserve an unbroken 
silence, but which, for the most part, consisted in holding such 
language respecting any mystery they had to mention before 
unbelievers, as was, at the same time, transparent enough to 
allow the truth to shine out to the initiated, and yet too obscure 
to betray either the teacher or his doctrines to the profane. In 
this reserved and ambiguous manner do Tertullian and some of 
the succeeding Fathers speak of the Eucharist ; and still more 
evasively, from the same cause, have almost all the Fathers of 
the first three centuries and a haif spoken of the Trinity. 

This latter fact I am, in a peculiar degree, anxious to impress 
on the reader ; seeing that it is of importance to my subject to 
show that by an almost exactly similar fate has the progress of 
these two mysteries, the Trinity and the Real Presence, been 
all along marked ; and that the same cause which produced, in 
some of the early Fathers, that ambiguity of language, on the 
subject of the Eucharist, of which the Protestants have availed 
themselves for the support of their schism, produced also that 
Bi ill greater ambiguity and inconsistency in the language of the 
same Fathers, respecting the Trinity, which has, with a similar 
degree of dexterity, been employed, in favor of their own heresy, 
Dy the Arians. 

I have already remarked how much more free from the re- 
straints of this singular Discipline were those writers who flour- 
inhed previous to the close of the second century, than were 

* In defiance, as it appears to me, of all evidence, it has been maintained 
Dy Tentzelius,Casaubon and others, that it was neither the Trinity, nor any 
of the other dogmas of the Faith, but merely the rites and ceremonies of the 
two Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist that were intended to be con- 
cealed from the non -initiated by the observance of this Discipline. 

f It is to the operation of the Discipline of the Secret that Catholic writers 
attribute the entire silence which they acknowledge has been preserved, on 
the subject of the Seven Sacraments, in all the authentic monuments of an- 
tiquity that remain to us. According to Schelstrate, — one of those by whom 
the circumstance is thus accounted for, — it is not till the seventh century that 
any mention of the Seven Sacraments occurs : — "Si pervolvamus omnia an- 
tiqu t.itis monumenta, si perscrutemur cuncta antiquissimorum Patrum 
scripta, si invpstijjemus ipsa Synodorum decrcta, nullum lihruin, nullum de- 
cn fuin repsriri, quod anto scptimum saeculum egeritde Septem Sacrameutis, 
eorumquo ritus exposuurit." — Sckelstratcn. De Disciplin. Arcan. 



46 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



any of their successors for the next hundred and fifty years; and 
I need but mention, in proof of this fact, that the same illustrious 
Father, St. Justin, who, as I have shown, ventured, in his Ad- 
dress to the Sovereign and Princes of the Empire, to promulgate 
the doctrine of Transubstantiation, proclaimed also, in the same 
public document, the mystic dogma of the Trinity. 

How far the circumstance of his not being an ecclesiastic 
may have rendered this Father somewhat less guarded in his 
public writings, I will not pretend to determine ; but it is plain 
that even he thought it prudent so far to disguise or soften down 
some of the more salient points of the doctrine of the Trinity 
as to present it to the minds of unbelievers in its least start, 
liiig shape. Knowing well that the charge of Polytheism was 
lying in wait for him, as well from Jews as from Gentiles, he 
refrains most cautiously, in his Apology, from asserting the co- 
eternity of the Son with the Father, and even, in some passages, 
expressly declares the inferior nature of the former : — "Next 
after God, we adore and love that Word which is derived from 
the ineffable and unbegotten God." And again, in speaking ol 
the Logos, " Than whom a more Royal and just Ruler, after 
God the Father, we know not one." 

The charge of heterodoxy which such language has drawn 
down upon St. Justin, would appear not to be without some 
foundation, had we not the Discipline of the Secret to account 
for it satisfactorily, and did there not occur other passages, in 
the very same document, where this veil of reserve is withdrawn 
and the true doctrine disclosed to the Initiate. Of this nature 
is the following, showing clearly that the pure, orthodox belief, 
— that which holds the Son to have been generated, not created, 
and to have been with the Father from all eternity, — was the 
belief delivered to St. Justin, and by him taught to the baptized : 
— " But his Son, who alone is properly called his Son, the Word, 
who was with him and was begotten by him before the Creatures." 

Another writer of the same age, Irenaeus, may be cited as yet 
more remarkable for the extent to which he has ventured to 
unveil both the Sacrifice in the Eucharist, and, still more fully, 
the great mystery of the eternal Generation of the Son. -With 
so much bolder a hand than any of his successors has he laid 
open the depths of this latter doctrine, that in him alone does 
Whiston allow that there can be found any sanction for that 
high view of the Trinity, to which Whiston himself was opposed; 
but which, however apparently, at times, " shorn of its beams," 
nas been, throughout every age of the Church, her unchanging 
doctrine. It was from want of attention to the operation of the 
Discipline of the Secret that Whiston and others have been led 
into exactly the same error, respecting the Trinitv. that othei 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



4? 



Protestant divines have fallen into, on the subject of the Real 
corporal Presence. 

Far different, indeed, from the language of Justin and Irenaeus 
was that held, on both these dogmas, by the Fathers of the fol- 
lowing age, when the system of secresy had begun strictly to be 
acted upon, and when, amidst the storms of persecution that 
gathered round their heads, the ministers of the Faith found in 
this holy Silence a protection both for their doctrines and them- 
selves. Nothing, in truth, can show more strongly the difference 
that, in this respect, distinguished the two periods, than a com- 
parison of the conduct of St. Justin with that of St. Cyprian, in 
situations very nearly similar. The former, as we have seen in 
his Defence of Christianity, addressed to the Princes of the 
Empire, did not hesitate so far to throw open the sanctuary of 
the Faith as to place before them its two great Arcana, the 
Trinity and the Real Presence ; whereas St. Cyprian, when, 
in like manner, called upon to stand forth in vindication of his 
religion, ventured no further, in his public epistle on the occasion, 
than to assert the doctrine of the Unity of God, leaving the Trinity 
and the mystic Sacraments of the Church wholly unmentioned. 

So cautiously, indeed, are the Christians of Cyprian's age 
known to have shrunk from all mention of the Trinity before 
the uninitiated, that, in reviewing the Acts of the Martyr, St. 
Pontius, the chief point on which the learned Schelstrate rests 
his conviction of their spuriousness is their representing this 
Martyr as speaking openly of the Trinity before the emperors 
Philip, while still Gentiles, — a violation of the law of secresy, 
on this subject, of which no Christian would, at that time,* have 
been likely to be guilty. 

Were we to form our judgment solely on some detached pas- 
sages of Tertullian, Origen and Lactantius, we must either come 
to Whiston's conclusion that the present accepted doctrine of 
the Trinity was not that of the primitive Church : or else sup- 
pose that the truth of this divine mystery, having broken out 
brightly and genuinely in the writings of St. Justin and IrenaBus, 
was again, for an interval of a hundred and fifty years, eclipsed 
and lost. To give but an instance or two of the imperfect views, 
respecting the relation between Christ and God, which the 
Fathers of the third century suffered to glimmer through their 
writings, we find the following unorthodox passage in Tertulli-an 
on the subject : — " God was not always a Father or Judge, since 

* There occur also some instances of the same strict observance of se« 
cresy, in the second century. Thus, we find, Alexander, the Maityr, when 
preaching to the prisoners, made no mention of the Holy Spirit, nor of the 
mystery of the Trinity ; and when ordered by Aurelius to explain all the 
dogmas of his faith, answered that he was not permitted by Christ to plac/ 
Wy things before dogs. 



48 



TRAVELS 0'* AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



he could not be a Father before he had a Son, nor a Judge be- 
fore there was any sin ; and there was a time when both sin 
and the Son were not." 

The fear of drawing upon themselves the imputation of Poly- 
theism from the Gentiles, appears to have been one of the chief 
motives with these holy men for their reserve respecting the 
Trinity ; and how readily disposed were not only the Pagans, 
but some of the heretics, to found such an accusation on this 
doctrine, appears from the account given by Tertullian of the 
Sabellians of his day, whose first question, as he tells us, in 
meeting any of the orthodox was, " Well, my friends, do we 
believe in one God or three ?" It was evidently to counteract 
such an impression that St. Cyprian, as we have seen in his 
Letter to the Proconsul of Africa, contented himself with solely 
establishing the Unity of God ; and that another learned Father, 
Lactantius, about half a century later, thought it prudent to put 
forth the following declaration : — " Our Saviour taught that there 
is but one God, and that he alone is to be worshipped ; nor did 
he ever say once himself that he was God. For, he had not 
been faithful to his trust, if, when he was sent to take away 
Polytheism, and assert the Unity of God, he had introduced 
another besides the one God. This had been not to preach the 
doctrine of one God, nor to do the business of him that sent him, 
but his own." — De vera Sapient. 

In a similar manner, with the view of removing those pre- 
judices which were known to exist against Christianity, from a 
notion that, like Paganism, it sanctioned the worship of many 
Gods, we find Origen, in his Treatise on Prayer, going so far as 
almost to deny that Christ is to be considered an object of sub- 
plication or thanksgiving : — " But if we understand (says this 
Father) what Prayer is, care must be taken that no derivative 
Being be the object of Prayer, — no, not Christ himself, but only 
the God and Father of the Universe, to whom also our Saviour 
himself prayed, as we have before expounded, and as he teaches 
us to pray. For, when one said to him, Teach us to pray, he 
does not teach us to pray to himself, but to his Father, saying, 
4 Our Father which art in heaven.' " 

It is from attending solely to passages such as these that not 
only calumniators of the Fathers, like Daille and Jurieu, but 
even Catholics of distinguished character, such as Petau and 
Huet,* have been led into the error of accusing the teachers of 

* This learned Catholic, in referring to the heretical opinions which are 
lo be found in such passages as I have above cited from the Fathers, doubts 
whether to impute them to impiety or unskilfulness. But the self-imposed 
restraint under which they, at times, wrote, affords the true clue to all such 
difficulties. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



49 



the early Church of Arianism ; whereas, a little more fairness 
in some of the theologians just named, and a little more industry 
in the others, would have enabled them to cite from writings of 
the very same Fathers, — writings produced under circumstances 
that left them more free to unfold the mysteries of their Faith, 
— passages fully asserting the dogma of the Tri-une Deity, in 
all its primitive, orthodox, and inscrutable grandeur. Thus 
Tertullian who, as we have seen, in addressing the Stoic Her- 
mogenes, could so far shrink from the true exposition of this 
doctrine as to declare that there was a time when God was not 
a Father, and had not a Son, has yet, in his Defence of the 
Trinity against Praxeas, given conclusive evidence of his belief 
in the in-dwelling of the Word with God from all eternity ; and 
has, moreover, in one sentence, defined the consubstantial union 
of the Three Persons as strictly as was afterwards done by 
Athanasius himself, — calling it " Una substantia in tribus cohse- 
rentibus." In a like manner, too, Origen, notwithstanding pas- 
sages such as I have above cited from him, which lower our 
Saviour in the scale of Being to a rank secondary and derivative, 
has asserted so orthodoxly, in other parts of his writings, the 
co-equality of the Son, in Godship, with the Father, as to have 
drawn from Bishop Bull, the defender of the Nicene Anathema, 
the praise of perfect orthodoxy. 

The natural working, indeed, of the wary policy which gave 
to these writers such an appearance of inconsistency, may be 
traced visibly through the course of the writings of St. Clement 
of Alexandria, in some of the earlier of which the equality of 
the Son to the Father is expressly maintained ;* while, in his 
subsequent works, whether yielding to prudence, or to that ad- 
miration of the occult wisdom of the Greeks which he so warmly 
avows, j- he withdraws this bolder view of the nature of the Re- 
deemer, and represents him, almost invariably, as a subordinate 
ind created Being. 

That this reserve and ambiguity on the subject of the Trinity 
continued to be practised to as late a period as the middle of the 
fourth century, appears from the following remarkable passage, 
in one of the Catechises of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, which is in 
iself confirmatory of my view of the whole system : — " We da 
net declare the Mysteries concerning the Father, Son, and Holy 
GJiGJt, to a Heathen ; nor do we speak plainly to the Catechu- 
mer*& about those Mysteries. But we say many things often in 

* His words are, if I recollect right, t%i<jwQa$ rw narpt. 

•j In citing the words of St. Paul, " We speak the wisdom of God in a 
mystery, even the hidden mystery," Clement remarks that the Holy Apostle 
here observes, "the prophetic and really ancien tconcealmcnt, from* whence 
the excellent doctrines of the Grecian philosophers were derived to them." 
D 5 



50 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



an occult way, that the Faithful who know them may understand 
them ; and that those who do not understand them may not be 
hurt thereby. * 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Doctrine of the It2arnation. — Importance attached to it by Christ himself.- 
John, vi. — Ignatius. — Connexion between the Incarnation and the Real 
Presence. — Concealment of the latter doctrine by the Fathers. — Proofs of 
this concealment. 

Having dwelt thus long upon the influence which that rule 
of policy, called the Discipline of the Secret, exercised so mani- 
festly over the writings of the Fathers on the subject of the 
Trinity, I shall now proceed to show that the same influence, — 
though certainly, in many instances, to a much less considerable 
degree, — affected the public writings of these same Fathers, on 
the no less vital and mysterious doctrine of the Eucharist. 

It may be observed to have -been chiefly round those points 
of belief on which the Christians felt themselves most exposed 
to the charge of borrowing from the theology of the Heathens, 
that they took the most especial care to throw the protection of 
this sacred silence. Of this description was, as I have already 
shown, the Trinity ; and in the same predicament, as doctrines 
liable to be misrepresented, were the great mysteries of the Son- 
ship and the Incarnation ; the former of which the philosophic 
Gentiles exclaimed against, as originating in the same gross 
notions which had dictated the genealogy of the Hoathen Gods ; 
while, by such scoffers as Celsus, the Incarnation of the Eternal 
Word was compared to those transformations which Jupiter un- 
derwent in his multifarious love-adventures. In truth, the very 
first great point of the Christian scheme of Redemption which 
Christians themselves, in the presumptuous exercise of their 
judgment, dared to call into question, was the Incarnation of the 
Redeemer. Under the very eyes of our Lord himself there 
arose, as we have seen, a sect of heretics,* who, refusing to be- 
lieve that Spirit so pure could clothe itself in corrupt flesh, chose 
rather to deny his humanity, and thus, in fact, nullify his mission 
as a Redeemer by removing that only link between the divini 
and human nature through which a mediation, implying sympa 
thies with both, could be effected. 

Tr obviate the mischiefs of this heresy, — coeval, as it wouia 
seem, with Christianity itself, — and confirm the truth of the 
manifestation of God in the Flesh was, it is evident, one of the 
most anxious objects, as well of our Saviour himself, as of those 

* The Docetse. See page 15. 



IX SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 51 

who acted under his authority. Had we no other proof, indeed, 
of the prevalence of such an error, respecting his nature, the 
solicitude he showed, in his interview with the Apostles after 
his resurrection, to convince them of his corporeality, by making 
them handle his limbs and by eating in their presence, would be 
sufficient to prove both the doubts, as to his humanity, that pre- 
vailed, and the immense importance which he himself attached 
to their removal : " Handle me (he says) and see : for a Spirit 
hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have :" or, as he is made 
to say, in an apocryphal work, cited by Origen,* " I am not an 
incorporeal Demon." 

In the First Epistle of St. John we find those heretics who 
denied the reality of Christ's body thus denounced: — "Every 
spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is . of 
God ; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is 
come in the flesh is not of God ; and this is that spirit of Anti- 
christ whereof ye have heard that it should come ; and even 
now already is it in the world." It is, indeed, supposed to have 
been principally with the view of obviating so dangerous an 
error that the same Apostle wrote his Gospel ; and not only the 
earnestness with which he anathematises this heresy in his 
Epistle, but also the pains taken by him, as Evangelist, to assure 
the world of the real death of Christ and of the issuing of real 
blood and water from his wounded side, render such a view of his 
design in writing this sacred narrative, both natural and rational. 

It is, in fact, in the 6th chapter of his Gospel, — that remark 
able chapter, whose testimony to the marvellous nature and vir- 
tues of the Eucharist the ingenuity of Protestant Divines so 
vainly labors to explain away, — that we find the very strongest 
proof of the vital importance attached in the Christian scheme, 
to the establishment of the verity of Christ's flesh and blood. 
Nor can it be doubted that, as St. John's main object in this 
Gospel was to refute and extinguish that pernicious heresy which, 
by denying the reality of the flesh of Christ, would deprive man- 
kind of the benefits of his Incarnation, so the stress which he 
here represents our Saviour as laying upon the ever blessed and 
life-giving effects of the Eucharist has evidently the same most 
momentous object in view. — showing emphatically that this mi- 
raculous Sacrament was, as it were, a sequel to the mystery of 
the Incarnation ; and that the mighty privileges and benefits 
which the latter had procured for mankind were, by the former, 
to be perpetuated and commemorated through all time. 

That such was the light in which our Saviour himself repre- 
sented this Sacrament, in that memorable discourse uttered by 
him in the Synagogue, at Capernaum, none but those who per- 
* The Doctrine of Peter. — Origen. de Princip. 



52 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



versely wrest the word of God to their own rash judgments will 
venture to deny. " One principal motive," says a learned Pro- 
testant writer, " that modern Divines have to deny that John vi 
is to be taken of the Eucharist is this, viz. that the effects and 
consequences there attributed to the eating and drinking Christ's 
flesh and blood (especially that of eternal life and all evangel- 
ical blessings annexed to it) are too great and valuable to be 
applied to the Communion."* 

Nothing can be more just or candid than this remark. Hence, 
in truth, all the wretched shifts resorted to by Church of Eng- 
land divinesf for the purpose of robbing the Catholic doctrine 
of the support of this chapter, and enabling the Protestant to 
sink the miraculous character of the Eucharist down to the 
" low" viewj taken of it by the Socinians and Hoadleyites. But 
the sense of all the great teachers of Christianity is against 
them ; and, above all, of those earliest in the field of the Faith. 
The apostolical Ignatius, who had been the disciple of him ' ; who 

* Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice. 

+ Thus Dr. Wliitby, adopting, in matter-of-fact seriousness, that allegon 
eal and analogical mode of interpretation, which Clement of Alexandria and 
Origen employed to mystify their hearers, had the conscience to maintain, 
that, by the phrases "eating his flesh" and "drinking his blood," in John vi, 
Christ meant nothing more than " believing Ids doctrines !" On this opinion 
Johnson remarks, — " It must be owned, that if our Saviour, by men's eating 
his flesh and drinking his blood, meant nothing but so obvious a thing as 
receiving him and his doctrine by faith and obedience, he clothed his thoughts 
in most unnatural language :" and again, " We may as properly be said to 
eat and drink the Trinitv, by believing in it, as to eat the body of Christ by 
bare faith." 

Next came Bishop Hoadley, who, rejecting all application of John vi, to 
the Eucharist whatever, described the discourse of our Saviour in the Syna- 
gogue as " only a very high figurative representation to the Jews then about 
him, of their duty and obligation to receive to their hearts and digest his 
whole doctrine as the food and life of their souls." Dr. Waterland, who dis- 
approved alike of Whitby's doctrinal interpretation and Hoadley's reduction 
of the Sacrament to a mere communicative Feast, is of opinion that the 
Chapter in question may be applied to the Eucharist, but not interpreted of it ; 
and brings forward a theory of his own respecting " Spiritual Eating and 
Drinking;" of the merits of which some judgment may be formed from the 
fact that, though disapproving of Whitby's notion of eating doctrines, he 
himself interprets a passage of St. Paul (Heb. xiii, 10.) to mean, eating the 
Atonement ! — (Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, p. 145.) In order to 
get rid, too, of the testimony of St. Ignatius to the true meaning of John vi, 
Dr. Waterland contends that this holy man, in speaking of his enjoyment of 
" the Bread of Life," had no reference whatever to the Eucharist in his 
thoughts, but, being then about to suffer martyrdom, was merely looking 
forward to the prospect of eating of Christ's Flesh, in the other world ! p. 1 53. 
Such arc the straits to which men are always sure to be driven, who endea- 
vor to make out a case where there is no case to be made. 

I " If any person think this a loio character of such a rite instituted by our 
Lord himself, upon so great and remarkable occasion," &c. &c. — Bishop 
HcaJley, Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



53 



wrote these tilings," and had doubtless heard, from the holy Pen- 
man's own lips, their true import and spirit, understood, mani- 
festly, by the promise of Eternal Life conveyed on that occasion, 
no vaguely allegorical lesson of faith or doctrine, but a clear 
assurance of a happy resurrection and immortality, to be derived 
from that communion with the body of Christ which is enjoyed 
by eating his flesh and drinking his blood in the Eucharist. 
Hence is it that the holy Ignatius speaks of this Sacrament, in 
language which no other part of Scripture, but this Chapter of 
John, justifies ; — calling it, on the strength of the privileges and 
virtues there annexed to it, the Medicine of Immortality and 
Antidote against Death. 

How perfectly the view taken of the Eucharist by the Cath- 
olics, — namely, that it was part and parcel of the mystery of 
the Incarnation, — was understood by the Gnostic Christians 
themselves, is evident from their conduct. For this reason was 
it that the Docetoe absented themselves, as we have seen, from 
public worship, — not that the sect, in general, entertained any 
objection to the Eucharist, according to their own Phantastic 
and spiritualizing view of it, but because they were unwilling to 
sanction, by joining in communion with the orthodox, that belief 
in the realily of the flesh present, which the latter, it was known, 
maintained. 

That the Fathers regarded this Sacrament in the same light, 
— viewing it not only as a continuance, but as an extension of 
the Incarnation,* — a great abundance of passages might be ad- 
duced to prove. Thus, for instance, St. Gregory of Nyssa draws 
a comparison between the two Mysteries : — " The body of Christ 
(says this Father) was, by the inhabitation of the Word of God, 
transmuted into a divine dignity, and so I now believe, that the 
bread sanctified by the Word of God is transmuted into the body 
of the Word of God. This bread, as the Apostle says, is sanc- 
tified by the Word of God and p?'ayer, not that, as food, it passes 
into the body, but that it is instantly changed into the body of 
Christ, agreeably to what he said, This is my Body. And there- 
fore does the Divine Word commix itself with the weak nature 
of man, that, by partaking of the divinity, our humanity may be 
exalted." 

In like manner, we find St. Ambrose pointing out the same 

* By calling the Eucharist an extension of the Incarnation, they meant 
that, while in the latter mystery, Christ but joined himself to one individual 
nature, and to no one person, in the former he joins himself not only to all 
individual natures, but also to their very persons. "Earn quam idcirco 
Patres Incarnationis extensionem appellarunt. In ilia, enim uni individual 
naturoD sese adjunxit nulli persona; ; at in ista, se singulis individuis, imo 
etiam personis adjunxit." — De Lingindes Condones de Sanctissimo Eucharistai 
Sacramento. 

5* 



54 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



analogy between the deified flesh and the deified bread. After 
asserting the dogma of Transubstantiation, in its highest Catholic 
sense, he proceeds, — "We will now examine the truth of the 
mystery from the example itself of the Incarnation. Was the 
order of nature followed, when Jesus was born of a virgin ? 
Plainly not. Then why is that order to be looked for here ?" 
Many other passages, to the same purport, might be adduced 
from the Fathers : but it is needless to multiply citations. The 
very view taken by the early Christians of the miraculous change 
of the elements implies that they considered the Eucharist as a 
kindred mystery with that of the Incarnation ; — as the wonderful 
means, in short, by which Christ perpetually renews his incar- 
nate presence upon earth, and continues to feed his creatures 
with the same flesh by which he redeemed them. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Concealment of the Doctrine of the Eucharist. — Proofs. — Calumnies on the 
Christians. — Protestant view of this Sacrament — not that taken by the 
early Christians. 

When so great, as we have seen, was the solicitude and 
watchfulness with which the Church screened from the eyes of 
the profane all her other great dogmas, with no less jealous care 
would she conceal, or, at least, soften down, through the medium 
of enigmatic language, a doctrine so mysterious and astounding 
as that of the Real Presence, — the test most trying of all (next, 
perhaps, to the Trinity) of that implicit faith, by which, as by 
its sheet-anchor, the whole Christian scheme of salvation holds. 
Accordingly, we are not only expressly told that this dogma 
was among the most hidden deposits of the Secret, but the lan- 
guage employed by the few Fathers who, in the third age, ven- 
tured to allude to it, shows with what sensitive caution they 
shrunk from any disclosure of its true nature. Thus Origen 
talks mysteriously and vaguely of " eating the offered breads 
which by prayers are made a certain holy body." St. Cyprian 
too, in relating, with an awe that betrays his real relief, the mi- 
raculous circumstance of a warning having been given to some 
profaner of the Sacrament by a flame bursting forth from the 
box that held the consecrated bread, describes the box thus sig- 
nalized, as " containing the Holy Thing of the Lord." 

Nothing, indeed, could show more strikingly both how awful 
were the associations with which they invested this mystery 
themselves, and how jealous was their fear lest it should become 
known to the infidel, than the language of another Father of 



April, 1867, 



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IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



55 



this time, Tertullian, who, in representing to his wife the con- 
sequences of her marrying a Pagan after his death, says, — " You 
would, by marrying an infidel, thereby fall into this fault, that 
the Pagans would come to the knowledge of our mysteries. Will 
not your husband know what you taste in secret, before any other 
food ; and, if he perceives bread, will he not imagine that it is 
what is so much spoken of?" — Ad Uxorem, lib. ii. c. 5. In the 
following century we find St. Basil alluding covertly to the Eu- 
charist as " the Communion of the Good Thing ;" and Epipha- 
nius, when obliged to describe, before uninitiated hearers, the 
Institution of this Sacrament, thus slurs over the particulars ot 
that astounding event : " We see that our Lord took a thing in 
his hands, as we read in the Gospel, that he rose from table, that 
he resumed the things, and having given thanks, he said, this is 
my somewhat." 

Even St. Gregory of Nyssa, by whom the great miracle of 
the Metastoicheiosis, or Transubstantiation, is put forth more 
boldly and definitely than by almost any of his predecessors, yet, 
in one of his most explicit passages on the subject, and in a 
writing, too, intended expressly for the initiated, stops short, as 
if awestruck, when about to mention the word "body," and 
leaves to the minds of his hearers to fill up the blank. — " These 
things he gives us by virtue of the blessing, changing the nature 
of the visible things into — that." 

There can hardly, perhaps, be a better proof of the extreme 
*>ecresy with which this mystery was guarded, than that Arno- 
bius, who was but a Catechumen when he wrote upon Chris- 
tianity, had been kept in such ignorance of the use made of wine 
in this rite, that in a passage where he reproaches, if I recollect 
right, the Pagans, with their libations to the Deities, he taunt- 
ingly demands of them " What has God to do with wine?"* 

Still enough, notwithstanding this system of reserve and se- 
ciesy, had transpired respecting the Christian doctrine of the 
Eucharist, to set the imagination and malevolence of unbelievers 
at work. Indistinct notions of dark, forbidden Feasts, where, it 
was said, flesh and blood were served up to the guests, became 
magnified by the fancies of the credulous into the most monstrous 
fictions. Stories were told and believed of the dreadful rites 
practised by the Christians in their Initiations ; — of an infant, 
covered with paste, being set before the new-comer, on which 
he was required to inflict the first murderous stab, and then par- 
take of its flesh and blood with the rest, as their common pledge 
of secresy. It is not difficult, of course, to see through all this 
disfigurement of calumny, the true doctrine of which the profane 
had caught these perverting glimpses. 

* "Q.uid Deo cum vino est?" 



56 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



By such monstrous imputations was it that some of the most 
cruel persecutions of the Christians were provoked and justified ; 
and yet no power of cruelty, not the agonies of death itself, 
could wrest their secret from -them. Had they seen nothing 
more in this sacrament than a simple type or memorial, such as 
the Arminian and Socinian consider it, they had but to say so, 
and not only persecution would have been thus foiled of its prey, 
but, what was of still dearer import to them, their creed would 
have won more ready acceptance. But no : — far more " hard 
to be understood" was the secret object of their worship ; and, 
when asked, as they were frequently by the Pagans, " Why con- 
ceal what you adore ?" their answer might have been, with truth, 
" Because we adore it." They saw, as the Catholics see to this 
day, what insulting profanation such a doctrine is, in the hands 
of the incredulous, exposed to; in what mire of ridicule and 
blasphemy their " holy things" would be rolled ; and accordingly, 
even when threatened with torments to extort from them their 
secret, they saw but one duty before them — to be silent, and die. 

Had Christian antiquity bequeathed to us, on the subject of 
the Eucharist, no other evidence than this solemn and significant 
silence, — had we not also the ancient Liturgies of the Church, 
and the catechetical writings of her Fathers, to bear ample tes- 
timony to the Catholic doctrine, on this point, — there still would 
have been, in this very mystery and silence, abundant evidence 
to convince any reasoning mind, that the Protestant notion of the 
Eucharist could not have been that entertained by the Primitive 
Christians. The simple history, in short, of this doctrine's re- 
ception and progress, through all its earlier stages, would be 
more than sufficient for such a purpose. For, to maintain that 
a mystery which, on its first promulgation, startled our Lord's 
disciples themselves, — which the Gnostic heretics of the first 
age shrunk from, as involving the doctrine of the Incarnation, — 
which the Pagans, from some indistinct glimpses of its real 
nature, represented as a murderous repast, a feast of " abomi- 
nable meats," — which, by the Priests themselves who administered 
it, was seldom spoken of but as a " tremendous mystery," one 
to be guarded from the eyes of the infidel, at the price of life 
itse'f, — to assert, that the dread object of all this concealment 
and worship, this amazement, horror, adoration, alarm, was noth- 
ing more than a simple sign or memorial, a mere representa- 
tion of our Saviour's body and blood under the symbols of bread 
and wine, a sacramental food in which Christ's presence is 
figurative, not real, and to which therefore, consisting as it does 
of mere bread and wine, to offer up any adoration is an act of 
idolatry, — to expect to have it believed, for a moment, by any 
one who has at all inquired into the subject, that such and no 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



57 



more was the sense attached to this divine ordinance by the first 
Christians, is, on the part of the Protestants, I must say, a most 
gross and wholesale demand of that implicit faith, from others, 
of which they are so perilously sparing themselves. 

When again, too, after contemplating all those awful circum- 
stances which marked the reception and observance of this rite 
among mankind, we look back to the stupendous occasion on 
which it was first instituted ; when we recollect the dreadful 
denunciations of the apostle against such as, by irreverence te 
:his Sacrament, are " guilty of the body and blood of the Lord,' 
and remember that some, among the Corinthians, who " dis- 
cerned not the Lord's body," were smitten by God with diseases 
and death,* — we cannot but marvel at the responsibility those 
Christians take upon themselves, who venture to cast off the 
ancient Faith, upon this most vital of its doctrines; who, first, 
refining away our Saviour's solemn declaration on the subject,"]" 
dispose, in the same manner, of the Apostle's tremendous com- 
ment upon that text ; and, in the very face of his denouncements 
against those who " discern not the Lord's ho&y" in this Sacra- 
ment, venture deliberately to deny that the Lord's body is there ' 



CHAPTER XV. 

Concealment ol the Eucharist — most strict in the Third Century. — St. Cy- 
prian — hi? timidity — favorite Saint of the Protestants. — Alleged proofs 
against Transubstantiation. — Theodoret. — Gelasius. — Believers in the 
Catholic Doctrine of the Eucharist, Erasmus, Pascal, Sir Thomas More, 
Fenelon, Leibnitz, &c. 

From what I have said, in the preceding Chapter, of the sys- 
tem of mystery and restraint which the Fathers of the third and 
fourth centuries, but more particularly of the former, thought it 
politic to impose upon themselves in speaking of the Eucharist, 
it will not be deemed wonderful that there should occur pas- 

* 1 Corinth, xi, 30. 

f A s the Reformer, Zuinglius, took the liberty of altering Christ's lan- 
guage, and reads, "This signifies my body," so Bishop Hoadley, in like 
manner, presumes to supply a word which he thinks wanting, and makes it, 
" This / call my body." It is remarkable enough, indeed, that Protestants 
who are so much for referring to the language of Scripture on every occasion, 
should yet, in this important instance, question its most express and simple 
declaration — a declaration repeated in almost exactly the same words, by 
three of the Evaiigelists, as well as by St. Paul, and explained exactly in the 
same sense, by our Saviour, in the discourse reported by St. John. "Unam 
perpetuo (says an obscure, but sensible writer) Scripturam clamitant; sed 
ubi ventum est ad earn, auditis quomodo legant. Tarn aperta sunt verba ; 
in omnibus Evangelistis sunt eadem. Omnia tamen pervertunt, omnia ad 
hajresim suum trahunt" 



58 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



sages in their public writings and discourses, which, being in- 
tended by them to be ambiguous, have fully attained that object ; 
and that, designed originally as such passages were to veil the 
truth from the unbeliever and the heretic, they should, to eyes 
wilfully blind, still perform the same office. The only wonder, 
indeed, is, taking all the circumstances we have here reviewed 
into consideration, that the number of passages affording this 
sort of handle to misapprehension should have been so incon- 
siderable ; and that, notwithstanding all the fastidious caution of 
the Fathers, on this subject, such a mass of explicit evidence 
should still be found in their writings ; — evidence so abundant and 
convincing as, with any unbiassed mind, to place the truth of the 
Catholic doctrine, respecting the Eucharist, beyond all question. 

It was in the third century, when the followers of Chrisj: were 
most severely tried by the fires -of persecution, that the discipline 
of secresy, with respect to this and the other mysteries, was most 
strictly observed. "A faithful concealment," says Tertullian, 
" is due to all mysteries from the very nature and constitution 
of them. How much more must it be due to such mysteries an, 
if they were once discovered, could not escape immediate punish- 
ment from the hand of man." (Ad. Nation. L. 1.) It may be 
conceived with what peculiar force such a motive to secresy 
would be likely to act upon minds naturally timid, — such as that 
of St. Cyprian, for instance, whose indisposition to martyrdom, 
however firmly he at last met it, when inevitable, was evinced 
on more than one occasion, when he prudently withdrew himself 
from its grasp. We find, accordingly, in conformity with this 
timidity of character, that, among the observers of the Discipline 
of the Secret, he is allowed to have been one of the most cir 
cu inspect and close. 

It is, indeed, curious, not only as illustrative of the charactei 
of the individual, but as part of that kindred destiny whicl 
seems to have attended, throughout, the two Catholic dogmas ol 
the Trinity and the Real Presence, that the same cautious St. 
Cyprian who, in his public letter to the Proconsul of Africa 
thought it prudent to keep the Trinity entirely out of sight, 
should have been also the individual who, by his evasive lan- 
guage, concerning the Eucharist, has been the means of furnish- 
ing the opponents of a real, corporal Presence, with almost the 
only semblance of plausible authority by which they support 
their heresy.* Little did he think, good Saint, that a day would 

* Even St, Cyprian, however, could not help, on occasion, letting the true 
doctrine escape. Thus he says that, in the Eucharist, "we touch Christ's 
body and drink his blood and, in an Epistle to Pope Cornelius, speaking 
of the victims of persecution, he says, " How shall we teach them to shed their 
blood for Christ, if, before they go to battle, we do not give them his blood 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



59 



come, when this prudence, or timidity, would be made to pass 
Tor orthodoxy, and when, — sturdy a stickler as he was for the 
supremacy of the Roman See, — he should attain the eminence, 
such as it is, of being the prime Saint of Protestants ! 

It would be amusing, — were not so awful a point of faith the 
subject of such trifling, — to observe the self-complacent triumph 
with which a Protestant controvertist sits brooding over one of 
these intentionally unmeaning passages of the Fathers, hatching 
it into an argument. It matters not that the holy writer from 
whom the passage is extracted has, in a hundred others, preg- 
nant both with meaning and with truth, borne testimony to the 
belief of his Church in that mighty miracle, — that fulfilment of 
a God's express promise which takes place under the veil of the 
Eucharist. It matters not : — the one convenient passage is alone 
brought forward again and again ; the professional controvertist 
must still show himself in the lists, however " falsified"* his 
armor ; and though se/f-deception is not always practicable in 
such cases, the great point is still gained of deceiving others. 

The argument drawn from the occasional application of the 
words "type," "sign," "figure," &c. to the Eucharist, I have 
already disposed of ; and a large proportion of the passages cited, 
as favorable to the Protestant side of the question, come under 
this predicament. One of the most triumphant pieces of evi- 
dence, however, (as they themselves consider it,) which the 
champions of the Reformed Faith are in the habit of bringing 
forward to prove that Transubstantiation was not the belief of 
the early Church, is to be found in a passage or two from Theo- 
doret and Gelasius (writers of the Fifth Century) in which it is 
asserted that the nature and substance of the sacramental ele- 
ments remain after consecration. The extract from Theodoret 
I shall here transcribe, as well because it affords a curious insight 
into the operation of the Discipline of the Secret, as because it 
will show to what straits the opponents of the Catholic doctrine 
must be driven, when they can contrive to extract grounds for 
triumph from such testimony. 

It is necessary to premise that the passage I am about to give 
is from a work written by Theodoret against the Eutychians (a 
sect of heretics who denied the human nature of Christ and 

* -His shield is falsified" — a meaning of the word which Dryden at- 
tempted to introduce, from the Italian. 

\ It cannot be said correctly that Eutyches denied the humanity of Christ, 
— his belief being that, after the incarnation, there was no longer any dis- 
tinction between the divine and human nature, but that the latter had' been 
absorbed into the former, as a drop of honey, according to his illustration, 
would be swallowed up on falling into the sea. By the Council of Chalcedon 
which, in 451, condemned this heresy, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity 
was at length fully established j— the union of the two distinct natures in 



60 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



that, of the two fictitious persons who discuss the question to- 
gether, Orthodoxus represents the Catholic, and Eranistes the Eu- 
tychian. Having established, in a preceding Dialogue, the reality 
of Christ's presence in the Sacrament, the speakers thus pro- 
ceed : — " Eran. I am happy you have mentioned the Divine 
Mysteries. Tell me, therefore, what do you call ti p. gift that is 
offered before the Priest's invocation ? — Orth. This mast not be 
said openly ; for some may be present who are not initiated. — 
Eran. Answer then in hidden terms. — Orth. We call it an 
aliment made of certain grains. — Eran. And how do you call 
the other symbol ? — Orth. We give it a name that denotes a cer- 
tain beverage. — Eran. And, after the consecration, what are they 
called ? — Orth/ The body of Christ and the blood of Christ. — 
Eran. And you believe that you partake of the body and blood 
of Christ ? — Orth. So I believe. — Eran. As the symbols then of 
the body and blood of Christ were different before the consecration 
of the Priest, and, after that consecration, become changed, and 
are something else, in the same manner we Eutychians say, the 
body of Christ after his ascension was changed into the divine 
essence. — Orth. Thou art taken in thy own snare, for, after the 
consecration, the mystical symbols lose not their proper nature ; 
they remain both in the figure and appearance of their former 
substance, to be seen, and to be felt, as before ; but they are 
understood to be what they have been made ; this they are be- 
lieved to be, and as such they are adored." 

We have here (in a conference, be it remembered, supposed 
to have passed before the non-initiated) three no less important 
points acknowledged than, — first, a change into " something 
else" of the symbols after consecration,* — secondly, a Real Pre- 
sence of the body and blood of Christ, and, thirdly, adoration 
paid to the Sacrament, in consequence. The only doubt the 
passage admits of is, whether, contrary to the Catholic doctrine 
on the subject, Orthodoxus means to assert that the substance of 
the bread and wine remains after consecration ; or whether, as 
the Catholic writers answer, the word " substance," as here used, 
neans merely the external or sensible qualities of the elements, 

those which, as Theodoret says, may be " seen and felt as 
before." The phrase "former substance," which seems to imply 
that a second substance has taken the place of the first, might 
certainly warrant the assumption that the whole passage wua 
sieant orthodoxly ; but the fairest conclusion, perhaps, to come 

Onrist, and its correspondence with that of the three persons in the Godhead, 
Wmg then definitely laid down. 

* The same writer, in another place, asserts it to be Christ's "will that 
we should believe in a change, made by Grace" in the symbols : — eBovXndn 
. . . Tiarevsiv rr\ sk rrji %apiTos y£ysvri[X£i>j) p£Ta(io\ji. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



61 



to (and the Catholic can well afford to be candid on this head,) 
is that Theodoret may have had some such vague notion, as 
Luther, afterwards, contrary to the sense of all Christian anti- 
quity, adopted, of the presence of the substance of Christ's body 
and blood, in the sacrament, together with the substance of the 
bread and wine. On turning, indeed, to the volume of this Fa- 
ther's works, edited by Garnier, I find it to have been the opinion 
of that learned Jesuit — after an impartial inquiry into the exact 
belief of his author respecting the modus of Christ's presence, — 
that Theodoret had, on the whole, a leaning to the Consubstan- 
tial heresy. 

Such, taken at its very worst, is the full extent of that lapse 
from orthodoxy into which, at most, two Fathers, out of the whole 
sacred band of the five first centuries, can be said to have fallen 
on this subject, — the apparent deviations of others being, as I 
have shown, easily accounted for, — and such the quantum and 
quality of that evidence against the doctrine of the ancient Cath- 
olic Church which every successive champion of Protestantism 
brings forward, each triumphing in the discovery of the same 
worn out Fools' Paradise. The true view of such insulated in- 
stances of heterodoxy is to be found in the following remarks 
which the subject has drawn forth from the editor of that valuable 
compilation, " The Faith of Catholics :" — " Should it be conceded 
that there is ambiguity in these expressions, or that even the au- 
thors of them meant to convey a sense, in our estimation, hete- 
rodox, how light must their authority be, when balanced against 
the massive evidence of so many writers of their own age, and 
of the preceding centuries ! — ' Since the ancients,' says Erasmus, 
* to whom the Church, not without reason, gives so much autho- 
rity, are all agreed in the opinion, that the true substance of the 
body and blood of Jesus is in the Eucharist ; since, in addition 
to all this has been added the constant authority of the Synods, 
and so perfect an agreement of the Christian world, let us also 
agree with them in this heavenly mystery, and let us receive, 
here below, the bread and the chalice of the Lord, under the veil 
of the species, until we eat and drink him without veil in the 
kingdom of God.' " 

To this citation from Erasmus, I shall add another from a 
writer worthy to be named along with that great man, the pious 
and powerful Pascal, by whom the views of the Eucharist pre- 
sented in the above sentences are thus more fully unfolded : — 
" The state of Christians, as Cardinal du Perron, in accordance 
with the opinions of the Fathers, remarks, holds a middle place 
between the state of the Blessed and that of the Jews. The 
Blessed possess Jesus Christ really, without figure and without 
veil. The Jews possessed of .Christ only the figures and the 

6 



62 



TRAVELS OF AN IRlSTl GENTLEMAN 



veils, — such as were the Manna and the Paschal Lamb ; and 
the Christians possess Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, veritably 

and really, but still covered with a veil Thus is 

the Eucharist completely suited to the state of faith in which we 
are placed, since it contains Christ within it really, but still Christ 
veiled. Insomuch that this state would be destroyed, were Christ 
not really under the species of bread and wine, as the heretics 
pretend ; and it would be also destroyed, did we receive him 
unveiled as they do in heaven ; seeing that this would be to con- 
found our state, in the former case, with that of Judaism, in the 
tetter, with that of Glory." 

The reader who has thus far accompanied me from the be- 
ginning of my inquiries, and who knows the dogged resolution 
to turn Protestant with which I set out, will feel anxious, perhaps, 
to be informed whether, at the period where we are now arrived, 
any traces of my original resolve still lingered in my mind ; or 
whether, with proofs clear as daylight, before my eyes, of the 
true holiness of my " first love," I had still lurking in my heart 
any desire of apostasy to another. Alas, so humiliating would 
be the confessions and explanations, which an attempt to answer 
this inquiry must draw from me, that most willingly do I reserve 
them for some future opportunity ; and, in the meantime, shall 
only say that it was not from any blindness to the light, — from 
any want of a deep conviction of the truths that had opened upon 
me, if, at the bottom of my heart, some worldly longings still 
lingered. There even were moments (such as I experienced on 
reading the passages just cited) when the unworthy " spirit of 
the world" died away within me, — when such a flood of religious 
feelings came over my heart as would not suffer any baser 
thoughts to live in their current, and when 1 was, in soul and 
mind, all Catholic, without a " shadow of turning." In this 
mood was it that, after closing the pages of the two great men I 
have just mentioned, I went to my pillow, pondering over the 
long list of illustrious sages, — the Erasmuses, Pascals, Fenelons, 
Leibnitzes, Sir Thomas Mores, — who have each, in turn, bowed, 
with implicit faith, before the miracle of the Eucharist, till, ele- 
vated above my ow r n conscious nothingness, by the contemplation 
of such men, I found myself, as I laid down my headj fervently 
saying, " Let my soul be with theirs !" 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



63 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Relaxation of the Discipline of the Secret, on the subject of the Trinity. — 
Doctrine of the Real Presence still concealed. — The Eucharists of the 
Heretics. — The Artoturites, Hydroparastatse, &c. — St. Augustin a strict 
observer of the Secret. — Similar fate of Transubstantiation and the Trinity. 

About the beginning of the fourth century, the Discipline of 
the Secret had been, on some important points, considerably 
relaxed ; and though the Eucharist still continued to be guarded 
with some strictness, the doctrine of the Trinity was, by degrees, 
suffered to escape from behind the veil. The Edict of Toleration 
which was, at that period, issued by Constantine, gave to the 
Christians full security in the promulgation of their opinions ; 
while the schism of Arius, by calling into question the divinity 
of the Saviour, not only rendered a declaration of the Church's 
doctrine on this subject necessary, but led naturally, from the 
sifting controversies to which it gave rise, to a more definite 
marking out of the frontiers of Trinitarian orthodoxy, than had 
yet been attempted. Still it was but by slow and cautious degrees 
that the entire dogma, in its perfect form, as acknowledged now, 
was developed. 1 have before quoted a passage from a Father 
of this age, where he says, " Of the Mysteries concerning the 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we do not speak plainly before 
the Catechumens ;" and, according to the learned Huet, (him- 
self a Catholic,) " it is certain that the Catholics durst not plainly 
own the divinity of the Holy Spirit so late as the days of Basil." 

In the meantime, the doctrine of the Real Presence, — follow, 
mg, for once, a fate different from that of its fellow mystery, 
the Trinity, — continued, as usual, to be whispered, in the inner 
shrines, to the neophyte, while, as Gregory of Nyssa informs us, 
the Eternal Sonship was become a topic of dispute among the 
lowest mechanics. Had any schism respecting the Eucharist 
taken place within the Church, the necessity of defending the 
doctrine would have led, doubtless, as in the case of the Trinity, 
to the divulging of it. But no such schism had occurred. Those 
among the Gnostic sects who adopted the Eucharist, though they 
denied the real humanity of Christ's body, did not ques'ion its 
presence in the sacrament, while some of them even believed, 
with the orthodox, in a change of the elements, by the power 
of the Holy Spirit. " The things" says the heretic, Theodotus, 
"are not what they appear to be, or what they are apprehended 
to be ; but by the power (of the Spirit) are changed into a spi- 
ritual power."* 

* "O aprog ayta^erai rr] 6vvau£i tov Trvev^aTOf, ov ra avrn ovra Kara to (potvopevoi 
oia c^ripOri, aXXa cvnauci eif dvvafiiv irpcvuaTinriv fieraPcSXrirai, 



64 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Oae of these sects, indeed, proceeded so far, in rivalry of tae 
Catholic Eucharist, as to contrive, by some mechanical process, 
to produce the appearance of blood flowing into the chalice,* 
afier the words of consecration, — thereby outdoing, as they 
thought, the orthodox in, at least, the outward show of the 
miracle. In thus counterfeiting, by means of real liquid, that 
.blood of which they, at the same time, denied the reality, these 
heretics were, of course, as absurd as knavish ; but the testimony 
which their trick bears to the antiquity of the Catholic doctrine 
is not the less valuable. Were any additional proof, indeed, 
wanting of the prevalence, in those times, of a belief in the tran- 
subs;antiation of the wine into blood, this effort of the Marcionite 
heretics to outbid, if I may so say, the orthodox altar in its 
marvels, would abundantly furnish it. 

There were also some other sects, besides the Gnostic, that 
adopted peculiar notions of their own respecting this sacrament. 
The Artoturites, for instance, a branch of the Montanists, offered 
bread and cheese in their religious rites. The Hydroparastatse, 
from a regard to sobriety, used only water in the Eucharistic 
Sacrifice. Among the Ophites, who worshipped the serpent 
that tempted Eve, the sacrament consisted of a loaf, round which 
a serpent, thoy kept always sacredly in a cage, had been suf- 
fered to crawl and twine himself ; and there was a sect of 
Manichseans who, holding bread to be one of the productions 
of the Evil Principle, kneaded up the paste of which they com- 
posed their Eucharist in a way too abominable to be mentioned. 

These heresies, however, though on so vital a point of doc- 
trine, yet, having been engendered out of the pale of the Church,"]" 
and being, all of them, with the exception of that of the Phan- 
tastics, limited and obscure, were not thought important enough 
to break the silence of the Church respecting this mystery. The 
doctrine of the Real Presence, therefore, undisturbed by dissent 
and sacred from controversy, was left, partly through policy ana 
partly through habit, inshrined in all its forms of mystery during 
the whole of the fourth century ; and how well the secret was 
still guarded from the Catechumens, as late as the time of St. 
Augustin, may be seen from the following remarkable passage : 

* "II (Vlarc) avoit deux vases, un plus grand et un plus petit; il mettoit 
le vin destine a la celebration du sacrifice de la Messe dans le petit vase, et 
faisoit une priere : un instant apres la liqueur bouillonnoit dans le grand vase, 
et 1'on y voyoit du sang au lieu du vin. Ce vase n'eloit apparemment que ce 
que l'on appelle communement la fontaine des noces de Cana; e'est un vase 
dans lequel on verse de l'eau, l'eau versee fait monter du vin que Ton a mi a 
auparavant dans ce vase et dont il se remplit." — Memoir es pour servir a 
VHistoire des Egaremens de V Esprit Humain, <yc. <§-c. 

f St. Cyprian, on being consulted respecting the nature of Novitian's 
errors, answers, "There is no need of a strict inquiry, what errors he teaches, 
while he teaches out of the Church. 11 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



65 



— <{ Christ does not commit himself to Catechumens. Ask a 
Catechumen, Dost thou believe ? — He answers, I do, and signs 
himself with the Cross of Christ ; — he is not ashamed of the 
cross of Christ, but bears it in his forehead. If we ask him, 
however, Dost thou eat the flesh and drink the Wood of the Son 
of Man ? he knows not what we mean, for Christ hath not com- 
Vnitted himself to him. Catechumens do not know what Chris- 
tians receive."* 

St. Augusti n himself, from the peculiar circumstances of his 
position, was induced occasionally, on this subject, to adopt a 
reserve and ambiguity of language which are not to be found, 
in the same degree, in any of the writers of his period. Living, 
as he did, in Africa, where the population was still, for the greater 
part, Pagan, he deemed it prudent, evidently, to follow the an- 
cient practice of the Church, and in the presence of all but the 
Faithful, to speak of this Mystery with caution. Hence is it 
that, though in none of the other Fathers are there to be found 
passages more strongly confirmatory of the ancient and Catholic 
Faith, f on this point, he has, in some instances, employed Ian- 
gunge of whose vagueness and ambiguity the Sacramentarians 
have, as usual, taken advantage for the bolstering up of their 
desperate cause.J How barefaced, however, must be the as- 
surance that would claim St. Augustin as a Protestant authority 
on this head, will appear by the following extracts from his 
writings : — "When, committing to us his body, he said, This is 
my body, Christ was held in his own hands. He bore that body 
in his hands." — Enarrat. 1. in Psalm 33. — Again, in another 
Sermon on the same Psalm, he thus, in the mystic language of 
the Secret, expresses himself : — " How was he borne in his 
hands? Because, when he gave his own body and blood, he 
took into his hands what the Faithful know ;§ and he bore Him- 

* " Interrogemus eum, Manducas carnem Filii Hominis et bibis sangui- 
nem ? Nescit quid dicimus, quia Jesus non se credidit ei. Nesciunt Cate- 
chumeni quid accipiant Christiani." — Tractat. in Joann. 

| Alger, who defended the doctrine of Transubstantiation against Berenger, 
refuted him chiefly, if not entirely, by passages out of St. Augustin. 

| Even by Zuingle, however, it is not asserted that St. Augustin was 
against transubstantiation, but merely that he would have been so, could he 
have ventured to express his opinion freely. This he was forced, says 
Zuingle, in some measure to conceal, on account of the very general preva- 
lence which the belief in a real fleshy Presence had, at that time, obtained. — 
De ver. et fats, religione. And here, we may be allowed to ask, how is this 
admission of Zuingle, with respect to the prevalence of such a belief in the 
time of St. Augustin, to be reconciled with that other favorite theory of the 
Protestants, which supposes the doctrine of Transubstantiation to have been 
first introduced by the monk Paschasius, in the ninth century ? But it is 
useless to ask such questions, — there being, in fact, no end to the inconsis- 
tencies and contrarieties of Protestants on this subject. 

§ " Quod norunt fideles." — These words, or, as expressed in Greek, laaatt 
E 6* 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 

self'm a certain manner, when he said, « This is my body.'' " — 
In his Exposition of the 98th Psalm, he says, " Christ took upon 
him earth from the earth, because flesh is from the earth, and 
this flesh he took from the flesh of Mary : and because he here 
walked in this flesh, even this same flesh he gave us to eat for 
our salvation ; — but no one eateth this flesh without having first 
adored it ; and not only we do not sin by adoring, but we even 
sin by not adoring it." 

It was my intention, originally, as the reader possibly recol- 
lects, not to include the Fathers of the fifth century, — to which 
period Augustin more properly belongs, — within the range of 
these inquiries; but an exception, in favor of so important an 
authority, will without difficulty be admitted. The brief history, 
too, which I have atterr yt e .d to give of the Eucharist, through 
the " aurea secula" of ne Ohurch, would have been left imper- 
fect without the testimony which the passage, just cited, fur- 
nishes ; a testimony va ua)) v e, as proving the general belief of a 
Real Presence in this Sao* siment, by that best practical evidence, 
the adoration paid to it, — the belief and the practice implying 
reciprocally each other. 

I have already intimated that most of the writers contempo- 
rary with, or just preceding St. Augustin, have, as compared 
with him, spoken frankly on the subject of the Eucharist. It 
was not possible, indeed, that such a development as, about this 
period, took place of a doctrine hitherto so inshrined in obscu- 
rity as was the Trinity, should not encourage by degrees a bold- 
ness of language and thought which would show itself in the 
assertion of the other great mysteries. Accordingly we find, — 
not only in the catechetical discourses of this time, but even in 
writings more intended for the public eye, — a far more explicit 
testimony to the doctrine of the Real Presence and of the change 
of substance, than had been ventured on since the days of St. 
Justin and St. Irenceus. It is worthy of remark, too, — as add- 
ing another illustration to the many I have already noticed 
of the similar fate that has, in most instances, attended these 
twin mysteries, Transubstantiation and the Trinity, — that the 
same eminent men who, in the fourth century, carried the latter 
dogma to that high region of orthodoxy where it stands fixed at 

St Trejivviitvoi) formed what may be called the watchword of the Secret, and 
occur constantly in the Fathers. Thus St. Chrysostom, for instance,— in 
whose writings "Casaubon remarked the recurrence of this phrase, at least 
fifty times, — in speaking of the tongue (Comment, in Psalm 143) says, 
"Reflect that this is the member with which we receive the tremendous 
sacrifice, — the Faithful know what I speak of" Hardly less frequent is the 
occurrence of the same phrase in St. Augustin, who seldom ventures to inti- 
mate the Eucharist in any other w r ay than by the words, " Gluod norunt 
Fideles." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



67 



present, were also those who asserted most boldly the entire 
Catholic doctrine respecting the Eucharist ; — the same Gregory 
of Nyssa who held that " the bread sanctified by the Word of 
God was transmuted into the body of the Word of God," having 
been also the strenuous maintainer of the doctrine, " that there 
was a whole Son in a whole Father, and a whole Father in a 
whole Son ;" and the same Gregory of Nazianzum, who desired 
his hearers " not to stagger in their souls, but, without shame or 
doubting, to eat the body and drink the. blood," having likewise 
told them that " whoever maintains that any of the Three Per- 
sons is inferior to the others, overturns the whole Trinity." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Fathers of the Fourth Century. — Proofs of their doctrine respecting the 
Eucharist. — Ancient Liturgies. 

Having now laid before my reader the whole process of 
thought and inquiry by which that phantom of Protestantism 
which had, as I fancied, beckoned to me out of the pages of St. 
Clement and St. Cyprian was again explained away into " thin 
air," I shall now select a few of the innumerable passages that 
abound throughout the writings of the fourth century, bearing 
testimony incontrovertible to the true nature both of the Blessed 
Eucharist itself, and of all the rites and doctrines connected with 
that mystery, — the altar, the oblation, the unbloody sacrifice, the 
real presence of the victim, the change of substance, and, as the 
natural consequence of all, the adoration. 

St. James of Nisibis.* — " Our Lord gave his body with his 
own hands, for food ; and his blood for drink, before he was 
crucified."f — Serm. 14. 

* A distinguished Bishop who assisted at the council of Nice, in 325, and 
was, as Cave describes him, " doctrinae orthodoxse vindex primarius." This 
Father, indeed, deserves to be included among those mentioned in the pre- 
ceding chapter as having maintained an equally high tone of orthodoxy in 
both the great Christian mysteries, the Trinity and the Real Presence. 

■f " Christ offered himself as a priest, before his crucifixion." — See Johnson's 
Unbloody Sacrifice. — This learned Protestant, who, like Grabe, Chillingworth, 
and other ornaments of the same Church, was sufficiently open to the light 
of truth to adhere to the ancient Catholic doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, 
thus expresses himself on the subject in another part of his work : — " I sup- 
pose all Protestants will allow that Christ's sacrifice was intended for the 
expiation of sin ; and, if so, they cannot think it strange that it was off red 
before it was slain, and that by the Priest himself ; — for it is clear this was 
the method prescribed by Moses of old." — And, again, "We may safely 
conclude that he did then offer himself, while alive ; especially since sacri- 
fices of expiation and consecration were, of old, thus offered by the Priest 
before they were slain." 



68 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



u Abstain from all uncleanness, and then receive the body and 
blood of Christ. Cautiously guard your mouth, through ichich 
the Lord has entered, and be it no longer a passage to words of 
uncleanness." — Serm. 3. 

St. Ephrem of Edessa. — " Consider, my beloved, with what 
fear those stand before the throne, who wait on a mortal King. 
flow much more does it behoove us to appear before the heavenly 
King with fear and trembling, and with awful gravity ? Hence 
it becomes us not boldly to look on the mysteries, that lie. before 
us, of the body and blood of our Lord." — Parcen. 19. " The 
eye of faith manifestly beholds the Lord, eating his body and 
drinking his blood, and indulges no curious inquiry * You be- 
lieve that Christ, the Son of God, for you was born in the flesh. 
Then why do you search into what is inscrutable ? Doing this, 
you prove your curiosity, not your faith. Believe, then, and 
with a firm faith receive the body and blood of our Lord" — De 
Nat. Dei. 

St. Cyril of Jerusalem.-^ — " The bread and wine which before 
the invocation of the Adorable Trinity were nothing but bread 

* The counsel here given, not to pry curiously into the mysteries of the 
Faith, is inculcated frequently in the writings of the Fathers. Thus St. 
Ambrose says — " Manum ori admove ; — scrutari non licet superna mysteria." 
(De Abrah. Patr.) St. Cyril, of Alexandria, lays it down, too, with equal 
solemnity, that all curiosity is to be refrained from in matters of faith : — to 
mcrrei irapaSeKrov airoXvirpayjiovrirov eivai XP*!- — Had the Fathers themselves 
somewhat more attended to this caution, much of the trifling speculation into 
which they have entered, touching the manner in which Christ's body unites 
itself with the bodies of those who receive it, would have been, with advan- 
tage, avoided. St. Cyril, of Alexandria, compares the union which thus 
takes place to that of lead with silver ; while another Father sees in it a re- 
semblance to the mixing up of leaven with paste. A third says it is like the 
melting of one piece of wax into another ; while, by some, an illustration of 
the mystery is sought for, in the manner in which medicine passes into the 
entrails. Such attempts to solve what is inexplicable but afford triumph to 
the infidel and the heretic ; and, accordingly, in the controversy which gave 
rise to the celebrated work " De la Perpetuity de la Foi," we find the Re- 
formed Ministers profanely reproaching the Catholics with believing that the 
body of Christ is received " comme on mange des pilules." 

| The Discourses of St. Cyril, from which these extracts are taken, were 
addressed to those Christians who were newly baptized, and who had there- 
fore but recently been admitted to the Mysteries. The learned and Protestant 
author of a very useful work, lately published, (Clarke's Succession of Eccle- 
siastical Literature,) expresses strong doubts as to the authenticity of these 
Discourses of Cyril, but omits to assign any reasons for his doubts. We 
have against him, indeed, high Protestant authorities. "To question," says 
Cave, " whether these Discourses be Cyril's (as some have done) is foolish 
and trifling;; when they are not only quoted by Damascen, but expressly 
mentioned by St. Jerome, and cited by Theodoret, the one contemporary 
with him, the others flourishing but a few years after him." The distin- 
guished theologian, Bishop Bull, contends also most strenuously against those 
who would contest the authenticity of these Catecheses, and the opinions of 
Vossius, Wlutaker, and other learned Protestants may be cited on the same 
side. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



69 



and wine, become, after this invocation, the body anal blood oj 
Christ.'" — Catech. Mystag. 1. "The Eucharistic bread, after 
the invocation of the Holy Spirit, is no longer common bread, J?ut 
the body of Christ" — Catech. 3. " As then Christ, speaking 
of the bread, declared, and said 1 This is my body,' who shall 
dare to doubt it ? And as, speaking of the wine, he positively 
assured us, and said ' This is my blood,' who shall doubt it, and 
say that it is not his blood V — Catech. Myst. 4. "Jesus Christ, 
in Cana of Galilee, once changed water into wine by his will only ; 
and shall we think him less worthy of credit, when he changes 
wine into blood?" — Ibid. "Wherefore I conjure you, my breth- 
ren, not to consider them any more as common bread and wine, 
since they are the body and blood of Jesus Christ according to 
his words ; and, although your sense might suggest that to you, 
let faith confirm you. Judge not of the thing by your taste, but 
by faith assure yourself, without the least doubt, that you are hon- 
ored with the blood and body of Christ : — this knowing, and of 
this being assured, that what appears to be bread is not bread, 
though it be taken for the bread by the taste, but is the body of 
Christ ; and that which appears to be wine, is not the wine, though 
the taste will have it so, but the blood of Christ." — Ibid.* 

St. Basil. — " About the things that God has spoken there 
should be no hesitation nor doubt, but a firm persuasion that all 
is true and possible, though Nature be against it.~[ Herein lies 
the struggle of faith." — Regula viii. Moral. " The words of 
the Lord, ' This is my body, which shall be delivered for you,' 
create a firm conviction." — Ibid, in Reg. brev. 

St. Gregory of Nyssa. — "What is this medicine? No other 
than that body which was shown to be more powerf ul than death, 
and was the beginning of our life ; and which could not otherwise 
enter into our bodies than by eating and drinking. Now, we 

* St. Cyril of Alexandria, who lived in the succeeding century, is, if any 
thing, still more express and emphatic in asserting a real, corporal Presence, 
than his namesake of Jerusalem. Thus, in his Homily on the Mystic Sup- 
per, he pronounces Christ to be "both Priest and Victim, him that offers and 
that is offered." — In his Commentary on St. John, too, we find the following 
passages : — " And what is the meaning and the efficacy of this Mystic Eu^ 
charist ? is it not that Christ may corporally dwell in us by the participation 
and communion of his holy flesh?" — "By the mediation of Christ, therefore, 
we enter- into a union with God the Father, receiving him within us, corpo- 
rally and spiritually, who by nature truly is the Son, and consubstantial with 
bi n." Another Holy Father, Isidore of Pelusium, who lived at the com- 
mencement of the same age and was one of the Disciples of St. Chrysostom, 
thus, in writing against Macedonius who denied the Divinity of the Holy 
CI lost, brings as a proof of the Spirit's Divine nature, the miracle of Tran- 
suhstantiation : — " Since it is he who, on the mysterious table, produces from 
common bread the very body of Jesus Christ incarnate." — Ep. ad Marathon. 
Monarch. 

| Huv or)na Oeov <x\r)Qss eivai Kai Swa-rov, kov h <J>vais [ia^rirat. 



TO 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



must consider, how it can be, that one body, which so constantly, 
through the whole world, is distributed to so many thousands of 
the faithful, can be whole in each receiver, and itself remain 
whole.* This bread, as the Apostle says, is sanctified by the 
Word of God and prayer, — not th?t, as food, it passes into the 
body, but that it is instantly changed into the body of Christ, 
agreeably to what he said, * This is my body.' "f — Orat. Catech. 

St. Gregory of Nazianzum. — " The law puts a staff in your 
hand, that you may not stagger in your souls, when you hear 
of the blood, passion and death of God : but rather without shame 
and doubting, eat the body and drink the blood, if you sigh after 
life, never doubting of what you hear concerning his flesh, nor 
scandalized at his passion." — Orat. 42. 

St. Ambrose. — " Perhaps you will say, why do you tell me thai 
I receive the body of Christ, wlien I see quite another thing? 
We have this point, therefore, to prove. How many examples 
do we produce to show you that this is not ivhat nature made it, 
but what the benediction has consecrated it ; and that the bene- 
diction is of greater force than nature, because, by the benedic- 
tion, nature itself is changed. Moses cast his rod on the ground, 
and it became a serpent ; he caught hold of the serpent's tail, 

and it recovered the nature of a rod Thou hast 

read of the Creation of the world : if Christ, by his word, was 
able to make something out of nothing, shall he not be thought 
able to change one thing into another — De Mysteriis. 

* Bonaventura illustrates this miracle by the example of a mirror, which, 
when broken, repeats, in each several fragment, the same entire image which 
it had reflected, when whole. 

| " The thirty- seventh Chapter (of Gregory of Nyssa's Great Catechetical 
Discourse) treats of the Eucharist, where he fully and clearly avows the doc 
trine of the Real Presence — KaXwj ow k<xi wv tov no Xoyw tov Gsou ayia^o^z 
vov aprov eis <ra>//a tov Qeov A.oyov fiEranoiEiaQai 7rt<rr£Vo//at." — Clarke's Succes 
sion, fyc. It is, in like manner, acknowledged by the learned Protestant, Dr 
Grabe, that Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril of Jerusalem both assert, in theii 
writings, that the substance of bread in the Eucharist is transferred into the 
flesh of Christ which he took of the Virgin. 

| Of this Discourse of St Ambrose, the writer, referred to in the preceding 
note, says — "Had a work been now written on the Roman Catholic practice 
and doctrine of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, it could not more fully assert 
the Papal creed on these points than this Discourse." — ( Clarke's Succession of 
Sacred Literature.) After such admissions as this, — and no Protestant, with 
candor and knowledge, will gainsay its truth, — what becomes, I again ask, 
of the old wives' tale, still harped upon occasionally by a few wornout con- 
troversialists, which would represent Transubstantiation as an invention of 
the ninth century? In the Treatise d? Sacramentis, attributed to St. Ambrose, 
we find equally strong and clear proofs of this Father's belief in Transub- 
stantiation. As, for instance, " Though they may seem to be the figure of 
the bread and wine, yet, after the consecration, they must be believed to be 
the flesh and blood and nothing else." In noticing the doubts that have been 
raised as to the authenticity of this particular Treatise, Mr. Clarke observes, 
" The arguments seem strong against it ; but, however it may be, it is clear, 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 7\ 

St. Jerome. — " Moses gave us not the true bread, but our 
Lord Jesus did. He invites us to the feast, and is himself our 
meat : he eats with us, and we eat Mm" — Ep. 150. ad Hedib. 

St. Gaudentius of Brescia. — " In the shadows and figures of 
the ancient Pasch, not one lamb, but many were slain, for each 
house bad its sacrifice, because one victim could not suffice for 
all the people ; and also because the my^tory was a mere figure, 
and not the reality of the passion of the Lord. For the figure 
of a thing is not the reality, but only the image and representa- 
tion of the thing signified. But now, when the figure has ceased, 
the one that died for all, immolated in the mystery of bread and 
wine, gives life through all the churches,* and, being consecrated, 

sanctifies those who consecrate He who is the 

Creator and Lord of all natures, who produces bread from the 
earth, of the bread makes his own proper body, (for he is able, 
and he promised to do it) and who of water made wine, and of 
wine his blood. 3 ' — Tract. 11. de Pasch. 

St. John Chrysostom. — " Let us believe God in every thing, 
*nd not gainsay him, although what is said may seem contrary 
to our reason and our sight.f Let his word overpower both. 
Thus let us do in mysteries, not looking only on the things that 
lie before us, but holding fast his words ; for his word cannot 
deceive; but our sense is very easily deceived. Since then his 
word says, ' This is my body,' let us assent and believe, and 
view it with the eyes of our understanding." — Homil. 82. in 
Matt. " As many as partake of this bod}', as many as taste of 
this blood, think ye it nothing different from that which sits above, 
and is adored by angels." — Homil. 3, in c. 1, ad Ephes. 
" Wonderful ! — the table is spread with mysteries, the Lamb 
of God is slain for thee, and the spiritual blood flows from the 
sacred table. The spiritual fire comes down from heaven ; the 
blood in the chalice is drawn from the spotless side for thy 
purification. Thinkest thou that thou seest bread ? that thou seest 

from the ascertained productions of this author, that the doctrines contained 
in it are in accordance with his opinions ; and the Real Presence, and the 
forms and ceremonies, &c. of Baptism, are just such as St. Ambrose would 
have delivered." 

* Such passages as this, which abound in the writers of the fourth age, 
attributing a life-giving effect to the participation of the Eucharist, prove 
most clearly that the sixth chapter of St. John was understood by them as 
referring to that Sacrament. In this sense, Julius Firmicus, a writer of the 
fourth age, calls the Eucharistic chalice "proculum immortale," and adds 
that it bestows upon the dying the gift of eternal life. " And what do they 
hold (says St. Augustin) who call the Sacrament of the Lord's Table, Life, 
but that which was said, ' I am the Bread of Life, and except ye eat of me, 
ye shall have no life in you?' " 

f The same Father defines the signification ot a Mystery to be, "when 
we see one thing but believe it to be another" — irepa bcauev, Irepa morivopsv. 



72 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN. 



wine 1 that these things pass off as other foods do ? Far be it 
from thee to think so. But, as wax brought near to the fire loses 
its former substance, which no longer remains ; so do thou thus 
conclude, that the mysteries (the bread and wine) are consumed 
by the substance of the Body." — Horn. 9, de Pcenit. " But are 
there many Christs, as the offering is made in many places ? 
By no means : it is the same Christ every where ; here entire, 
and there entire, one body. As then, though offered in many 
places, there is one body, and not many bodies ; so is there 
one sacrifice." — Horn. 17, in c. 9, ad Hebr. 

St. Maruthas. — " As often as we approach and receive on our 
hands the body and blood, we believe that we embrace his body, 
and become, as it is written, flesh of his flesh and bone of his 
bones. For Christ did not call it the figure or species of his 
body, but he said, Hhis truly is my body and this is my blood.' " 
— Com. in Mat. 

In addition to the decisive testimony of all the Fathers on this 
subject, there is yet another body of evidence, still more ancient 
and precious, to be found in those Liturgies of the early Churches, 
Greek, Latin, Arabic, Syriac, &c, which, like the Apostles' 
Creed, and for similar reasons, were handed down unwritten,* 
and preserved, in the memories of the Faithful, from age to age. 
It was not till Christianity had found a refuge under the roofs 
of Kings that these depositories of her sacred rites, prayers, and 
dogmas, were published to the world ; and, whatever interpola- 
tions they may have, some of them, suffered in their progress, 
it is not doubted, among the learned, that, in those parts where 
they are found all to agree, they may be depended upon as au- 
thentic monuments of the apostolic times. j" Their entire agree- 
ment, therefore, in the sense of those prayers which were used 
in consecrating the elements of the Eucharist,^: is a proof more 
remarkable, perhaps, than any other that has been adduced, of 
the apostolical date of the Catholic doctrine on that subject. An 

* The Apostles' Creed is supposed to have been one of the Signs of the 
Secret, by which the Initiated, or baptized, knew each other, and to have 
thence derived the designation of Symbol. — See Hist, of Apostles* Creed. 

t It can "hardly be doubted (says Archbishop Wake) "but that thoss 
prayers in which the Liturgies all agree, in sense, at least, if not in words, 
were first prescribed, in the same or like terms, by those Apostles and Evan 
gelists" whose names they bear. — Apostolic Fathers. 

J "I add to what has been already observed the consent of all the Chris 
tian Churches in the world, however distant from each other, in the holy 
Eucharist, or Sacrament of the Lord's Supper ; which consent is indeed 
wonderful. All the ancient Liturgies agree in this form of prayer, almost 
in the same words, but fully and exactly in the same sense, order and method ; 
which whoever attentively considers must be convinced that this order of 
prayer was delivered to the several churches in the very first plantation and 
settlement of them." — Bishop Bull, Sermons on Common Prayer. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



73 



extract or two from some of the most ancient of these Liturgies 
shall conclude this long Chapter. 

Liturgy of Jerusalem, (called also, the Liturgy of St. James.) 
— " Have mercy on us, O God ! the Father Almighty, and send 
thy Holy Spirit the Lord and giver of life, equal in dominion to 
thee and to thy son — who descended in the likeness of a dove 
on our Lord Jesus Christ — who descended on the holy Apostles 
in the likeness of tongues of fire — that coming he may make this 
bread the life-giving body, the saving body, the heavenly body, 
the body giving health to souls and bodies, the body of our Lord, 
God and Saviour, Jesus, for the remission of sins and eternal 

life to those who receive it. — Amen Wherefore 

we offer to thee, O Lord, this tremendous and unbloody sacrifice 
for thy holy places which thou has enlightened by the manifesta- 
tion of Christ, thy son," &c. dec. 

Liturgy of Alexandria, (called also, the Liturgy of St. Mark.) 
— " Send down upon us, and upon this bread, and this chalice, 
thy Holy Spirit, that he may sanctify and consecrate them, as 
God Almighty, and make the bread indeed the body and the cha- 
lice the blood* of the New Testament of the very Lord, and God, 
and Saviour, and our sovereign King, Jesus Christ," &c. &c. 

Roman Liturgy, (called also, the Liturgy of St. Peter.)— 
" We beseech thee, O God, to cause that this oblation may be, 
in all things, blessed, admitted, ratified, reasonable and accept- 
able ; that it may become for us the body and blood of thy be- 
loved Son, our lord Jesus Christ." At the Communion, bowing 
down in sentiments of profound adoration and humility, and 
addressing himself to Jesus Christ then present in his hand, he 
says thrice, " Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter 
under my roof ; but say only the word and my soul shall be 
healed." 

Liturgy of Constantinople. — " Bless, O Lord, the holy bread 
— make, indeed, this bread the precious body of thy Christ. Bless, 
O Lord, the holy chalice ; and what is in this chalice, the pre- 
cious blood of thy Christ — changing by the Holy Spirit." .... 
Then, dividing the holy bread into four parts, the Priest says 
•• The Lamb of God is broken and divided, — the Son of the 
Father, he is broken, but not diminished ; he is always eaten, 
but is not consumed ; but he sanctifies those who are made par- 
takers." 

* " I find," says the Protestant Grotius, " in all the Liturgies, Greek, Latin, 
Arabic, Syriac, and others, prayers to God that he would consecrate, by his 
Holy Spirit, the gifts offered, and make them the hodxjand blood of his Son. I 
was right, therefore, in saying that a custom so ancient and universal that it 
must be considered to have come down from the primitive times, ought not 
to have been changed." — Votum Pro Pace. 



74 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Visit to T d-street Chapel. — Antiquity of the observances of th 

Mass. — Lights, Incense, Holy Water, &c. — Craw-thumpers. — St. A> 
gustin a Craw-thumper. — Imitations Of Paganism in the early Church. 

It was, I recollect, late on a Saturday night, when my task 
of selecting the extracts given in the preceding chapter was com- 
pleted ; and so strong, I confess, was the yearning with which 
I found myself drawn back to old Mother Church, by so many 
irresistible proofs of her pure Christian descent, that, on the fol 
lowing morning, for the first time since I had ceased to be a 

boy, I went to attend the celebration of mass in T -d-street 

Chapel. It was as a sort of peace-offering to the manes of my 

venerable old Confessor, Father O' , that I thus chose the 

chapel to which he had belonged, as the scene of the Prodigal's 
Return, and, — like those mariners of old who used to hang up 
their votive tablets in the temple, after escaping from shipwreck, 
— went to offer up a short prayer on my arrival, safe and sound, 
from this long and adventurous cruise after that phantom-ship, 
primitive Protestantism. 

But, though returning thus to the mansion of her who had nursed 
me, was I, indeed, " worthy to be called her son ?" — Though 
my reason had been so fully, so abundantly convinced, was that 
worst source of error, " the blindness of the heart," yet removed ? 
My readers themselves will know but too well how to answer 
this question, when I confess, that so ashamed did I feel even 
of the slight hankering after my former faith, which this visit 
to the chapel betrayed, that I took care to place myself where 
I should be least 'likely to meet with persons who knew me ; 
and even there cowered in my corner so as to be, as much as 
possible, concealed. 

Though it is evident, from all this, that my feeling of religion 
had gained but little by my late course of sacred studies, my 
stock of knowledge on the subject could not be otherwise than: 
considerably increased. Far different, indeed, were the thoughts 
with which I now witnessed the ceremonies of that altar from 
those which they had awakened in me in my boyish days. I 
had then blindly revered all its forms, without knowing what 
they meant ; I was now book-learned in their history and their 
import, but — where was the feeling ? It was, I blush to own, 
far more with the zeal of an antiquary, than of a Catholic, or 
Christian, that, as I now peeped from my corner, I took plea- 
sure in tracing, through every part of the service, some doctrine 
or observance of the primitive times, and admiring the watchful 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



75 



lidc/ity with which Tradition had handed down every little cer- 
emony connected with that dawn of our faith. 

In the use of lights and incense, — a practice sneered at by the 
Protestant, as pagan, — I but read the touching story of the early 
Church, when her children, hunted by the persecutor, held their 
religious meetings either at night, or in subterranean places,* 
whose gloom, of course, rendered the light of tapers*}" necessary, 
and where the fumes of the censer, besides being familiar to the 
people among whom Christianity first sprung, were resorted to 
as a means of dissipating unwholesome odors. In sprinkling 
the Holy Water on my forehead, I called to mind the far period, 
— as early as the beginning of the second century, — when salt 
began to be mixed with the blessed water, in memory of Christ's 
death or, as others will have it, as a mystic type of the hypos 
tatic union of the two natures in the Redeemer. 

At that period of the Mass when the mysterious Sacrifice be- 
gins, I found myself reminded of the form of words, " Foris 
Catechumeni," in which, invariably, as long as the Discipline of 
the Secret continued to be observed, the Catechumens, or un- 
baptized, were dismissed from Church, before those Mysteries, 
which none but the initiated were allowed to witness, commenced. 
By the words " Per quern hsec omnia, Domine,"§ my thoughts 
were recalled to the simplicity of the first ages, when the young 
fruits of the season used to be laid on the altar, and receive, in 
these words, the blessing of the Priest, before the Communion. 
Again, when I heard the Priest say " Lift up your hearts," and 
the people respond to him " We have lifted them up to the Lord," 
could I help remembering with reverence that in the very same 
phrases did St. Cyprian and his flock commune before their 
God, || no less than fifteen hundred years since, — that is. twelve 
whole centuries before any of those Protestants, by whom the 
Mass was abolished, existed ! 

But there occurred to me yet another proof of the high an- 

* Ciampini, in his curious work on the remains of ancient buildings and 
Mosaics, denies that the primitive Christians performed their worship in 
crypts, and asserts that their meetings were held in houses built over, or near, 
the cemetries. This laborious antiquary numbers up a list of no less than 
eighty churches built by the Christians from the year 33 to 275. 

\ Thus we are told, in some notes on Eusebius, (De Die Dominico,) " Quod 
Christiani mane quondam congregati, Synaxes suas ad lumina accensa cele- 
brarint quae deinceps, etiam interdiu retenta sunt." 

f According to Tertullian, the sprinkling of the Holy Water was " in 
memoriam dedicationis Christi." 

§ By Calvin, Basnage, &c, an attempt has been made to turn this formula 
of the Ancient Mass into an argument against the doctrine of the Real Pres- 
ence, — but the explanation given above is a sufficient answer to their cavils. 

|| De Orat. Domin. — St. Cyril of Jerusalem also makes mention of this 
formula, Calech. Myst. 5. 



76 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



tiquity of the religious observances of the Catholics, which struck 
me the more forcibly, inasmuch as it related to one of their most 
ridiculed practices, that of beating the breast with the clenched 
hand, at the Confiteor, and other parts of the service ; — a prac- 
tice which, in Ireland, has drawn down on the Papists the 
well-bred appellation of craw -thumpers. When I looked round, 
however, upon the humble Christians, thus nicknamed, and re- 
membered that St. Augustin himself, the pious and learned St. 
Augustin, was also a craw-thumper, I felt that to err with him was 
at least erring in good company, and proceeded to join the " tun- 
dentes pectora"* (as the Saint describes them) with all my might. 

The charge brought against the Catholics of being copyists 
of the Pagans is one regularly renewed by every tour-writing 
parson who returns, horror-struck with images, &c. from Rome 
and Naples. So far from denying, however, their adoption of 
some Pagan customs, the early Christians would have avowed 
paid justified such a policy, as calculated to soften down that ap- 
pearance of novelty in their faith which formed one of the most 
startling obstacles to its reception with the Heathen, and thus to 
enable them, by borrowing some of the forms of error, to win 
over their hearers to the substance of truth, j - 

The numerous vestiges, indeed, of Paganism, which partly 
from this policy, partly from the force of habit and imitation, 
were still retained in the ritual, language, and ceremonies of the 
early Church, would take far more space than my present limits 
can afford to enumerate them. Not to dwell on such instances 
as the adoption of the words " Mystery" and " Sacrament":]: from 
the religious language of the Romans and Greeks, — the form 
of dismissal addressed to the Catechumens, at the commence- 
ment of the Sacrifice, " Depart, ye who are not initiated," in 
which we recognize the " Procul este, profani," of the Pagan 
mysteries, — the confession of sins, and abstinence from particu- 
lar foods required by both religions of the candidates for initia- 
tion^ nnd the different stages or ranks through which they 

* " Si non habemus peccata, et tundentes pectora, dicimus ' Dimitte nobis 
peccata nostra,' &c. &c." — Serm. 35. 

f The advantage of such a mode of proceeding is put acutely in the fol- 
lowing words of Bede : — " Pertinaci Paganismo mutatione subventum est, 
quuin rei in totum sublatio potius irritasset." 

| By Doctor Waterland the application of the word " Sacrament" to the 
Eucharist is traced to so early a date as that of the letter of Pliny respecting 
the Christians, in which he says, " Seque Sacramento non in scelus aliquod 
obstringere, sed ne furta, &c." But it is evident that Pliny here employs the 
word, in the Roman sense, as meaning an Oath ; nor is there, I believe, any 
recorded instance of its application to the Eucharist before the time of Ter 
tullian. 

§ After confessing their sins, the Heathen candidates were asked, "Have 
you eaten of the lawful food, and abstained from the unlawful ?" — to gitov *at 

to [trj aiTOV Ss Eysvcroj. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



77 



were, in each, gradually promoted,* — the special selection by 
the Christians of those days, for the Festivals of their Church, 
which had been before dedicated to some superstitious solemnity 
by the Pagans,f — not to dwell upon these and many other such 
striking points of resemblance, we can trace, even in the Liturgic 
service of the early Church, both the forms and language of the 
Pagan worship. 

Thus that species of Psalmody, called Antiphony, first intro- 
duced into the Church by St. Ignatius, wherein the anthem was 
sung alternately by two choirs, was the mode of singing, ac- 
cording to Casaubon, that had been practised in the temples of 
the Gentiles ; and the responses of the people to the Priests found 
a precedent in some of the ancient Bacchic rites : — " Praise God," 
said the Daduchus, or High Priest, and the people answered, 
" Oh son of Semele, bestower of wealth." The very words, 
indeed, Kyrie Eleison, " Lord have mercy on us," which have 
kept their place in all Litanies to the present day, were, as ap- 
pears from Arrian (who wrote in the second century,) the or- 
dinary form of prayer to the Deity among the Pagans. " We 
pray to God (says Arrian, himself a Pagan) in the words Kyrie 
Eleison."X 

So far from denying, I repeat it, the source from which these 
forms have been derived, the Catholics are themselves among 
the first to avow it ;§ well knowing, however the Protestant 
may wish to blink such a conclusion, that these occasional re- 
semblances to the forms of Paganism, in the ceremonies of their 
Church, form one of the countless proofs she can give of the 
high antiquity of her descent, — even the outward formulary of 
her devotions being thus traceable to that bright dawn of Chris- 
tianity, when truth gained upon error gradually, like light upon 
darkness ; and when, if any such lingering mists remained from 
the night, they were but to be made subservient to the glory of 
the day. 

* The last and highest stage of initiation was by the Heathen Mysta- 
gogues called Teletes, or the Consummation ; and in the same manner, the 
admission of the Christian neophyte to communion is styled frequently by 
the Fathers eXQhv cm to -eXeiov. 

f "Our Lord God," says Theodoret, "hath brought his dead (viz. the 
Martyrs) into the room and place of your Gods whom he hath sent about 
their business, and hath given their honor to his Martyrs. For, instead of 
the feasts of Jupiter and Bacchus are now celebrated the festivals of Peter 
and Paul," &c. 

\ Tof Qeov EmKaXovjizvoi SeofxeOa avrov, IZvpu eXer^crov. — Dissertat. Epktet. 

§ The learned Brisson (one of the victims of the League) says expressly 
of the words Kyrie Eleison, in his work on the Forms of the Catholic Church, 
" Fontern hujus precationis esse a Paganorum consuetudine." 

7* 



78 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Ruminations. — Unity of the Catholic Church. — History of St. Peter's Chair. 
— Means of preserving Unity. — Irenaeus. — Hilary. — Indefectability of the 
one Church. 

Surely, thought I, as, ruminating, I sauntered homewards 
from the chapel, — were there even no other evidence in favoi 
of the authenticity of her claims, this adherence, on the part of 
the Catholic Church, through all changes of time and circum 
stance, to every, even the minutest point of discipline or worship 
on which the seal of her primitive teachers was set, would be, 
of itself, a sufficient assurance, without any further testimony, 
that she had kept equally scrupulous watch over the great doc- 
trines bequeathed to her, and handed them down, even unto our 
own times, as they were " delivered by the Saints." 

Though nothing less, of course, than the superintendence of a 
Divine Providence can be held sufficient to account for this great 
standing miracle of a Church upholding itself through the lapse 
of eighteen centuries, unchanged and, as it would appear, un- 
changeable, — it may yet be permitted to inquire how far, as a 
subordinate instrument, human policy may have had its share in 
producing this result ; and there can be no doubt that the zeal- 
ous watchfulness with which the pastors of the Catholic Church 
have ever acted upon, themselves, and prescribed urgently to 
their flocks the precept of St. Paul, " Be ye of one mind," has 
been, of all the human means employed to keep the strong fabric 
of their faith unbroken, the most sagacious and powerful. 

What importance they attached to Unity, and how great was 
their horror of schism, appears from the earnest language of all 
the Fathers on the subject. " Unity cannot be severed," says 
St. Cyprian, " nor the one body by laceration be divided. What- 
ever is separated from the stock, cannot live, cannot breathe 
apart : it loses the substance of life." — Be TJnitat. Eccles. " The 
ancient Catholic Church alone (says St. Clement of Alexandria) 
is one in essence, in opinion, in origin, and in excellence, one in 
faith." — Strom. 1. 7. In a still more Popish spirit, St. Optatus 
(a bishop of Milevis in the fourth century) thus writes : — " You 
cannot deny that St. Peter, the chief of the Apostles, established 
an Episcopal Chair at Rome. This Chair was one, that all 
might preserve Unity by the union which they had with it : so 
that, whoever set up a chair against it, should be a schismatic 
and an offender." — De Schism. Donat. 

The history, indeed, of this " one Chair," presents, in itself, 
such a phenomenon and marvel as no other form of human 
power, in any age of the world, has paralleled. Through a 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



79 



course of eighteen centuries, amidst the constant flux and reflux 
of the destinies of nations, while every other part of Europe has 
seen its institutions, time after time, broken up and reconstructed, 
while new races of kings have, like pageants, come and disap- 
peared, and England herself has passed successively under the 
sway of five different nations, the Apostolic See, the Chair of 
St. Peter, has alone defied the vicissitudes of time, — h'as re- 
mained as " a city seated on a mountain," a rallying point for 
the church of God throughout all time, and counting an unbroken 
succession of Pontiffs* from its first occupant, St. Peter, down 
to the present hour. 

To return, however, to the more directly human means by 
which the stability of the Catholic Church has been thus won- 
derfully preserved, — we have seen that to the maintenance of 
entire and changeless unity among her children, all the energies 
of her most enlightened pastors have, in all times, been directed : 
and such a system of union being, in fact, indispensable both to 
the peace and durability of their Church, it is of importance tc 
inquire by what means they so well succeeded in effecting it 
Was it by throwing open the Scriptures to the multitude ? Was 
it by leaving, like modern Reformers, the right of judgment un 
fettered, and allowing every man to interpret the Sacred Volume 
as he fancied ? Far from it ; — they were as little Protestant on 
this point as on all others. They asked, with St. Paul, " Are alf 
Prophets ? are all Teachers ?" They knew, with St. Peter, that 
there are, in the Scriptures, " things hard to be understood, which 
the unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction." 
They saw the consequences of the first steps of dissent in the 
random course of all the heretics of their day ; and the language 
employed by them in speaking of these vagrant sectaries was but 
an anticipation of what the Catholics of after-times have had to 
apply to Protestants. Thus St. Irenaeus, who lived, if I may so 
say, in the very sunset of the apostolical age, and had its light 
fresh around him, after remarking the uncountable varieties of 
doctrine into which heresy had even then branched, adds : — 
" When, therefore, they shall be agreed among themselves on 
what they draw from the Scriptures, it will be our time to refute 
them. Meanwhile, thinking wrongfully, and not agreeing in 
the meaning of the same words, they convict themselves. But 
we, having one true and only God for our master, and making 
his words the rule of truth, always speak alike of the same 
things."— Adv. Hcer. I. 4.f 

* In speaking of the first links of this chain, — from St Peter down to 
Eleutherius, the twelfth Bishop of Rome, — Irenaeus says, " In this very order 
and succession has the Tradition which is in the Church, and the preaching 
of the truth, come to us from the Jlpostles." 

t In uYj same spirit is another remarkable passage of the same Fathci : — 



80 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Two centuries later we find the great Trinitarian, St. Hilary, 
describing the Arian creed-mongers of his own time in terms 
no less appropriately applicable to the Luthers, Zvvingles, and 
Calvins of the Reformation, and to all those succession crops of 
Creeds that sprung up so rankly under their culture. " When 
once they (the Arians) began to make new confessions of faith, 
belief became the creed of the times rather than of the Gospels. 
Every year new creeds were made, and men did not keep to 
that simplicity of faith which they professed at their baptism. 
And then, what miseries ensued ! for soon there were as many 
creeds as might please each party ; and nothing else has been 
minded, since the Council of Nice, but this creed-making. — 
New creeds have come forth every year, and every month : they 
have been changed, have been anathematized, and then re-estab- 
lished ; and thus, by too much inquiry into the faith, there is no 
faith left. Recollect, too, that there is not one of these heretics 
who does not impudently assert that all his blasphemies are de- 
rived from the Scriptures.'''' — Ad Constant, lib. 2. 

Having, from the earliest times of the Faith, such examples 
to warn them, and adhering firmly to the principle of oneness 
enjoined by Christ himself, the heads of the church continued 
invariably to act upon the system of requiring all within the 
fold to follow the one Shepherd ; and if any resisted or dissented, 
cast them forth from the flock. To this exclusion, no less awful 
a penalty was attached than the forfeiture of eternal salvation ;* 
and, however stern and tremendous such a decree must appear, 
they who had been taught that there was but " one Lord, one 
faith, and one baptism," and who held, therefore, that he who 
was not in the ark must perish by the deluge, could not, with 
any sincerity, pronounce a more lenient sentence. 

Under the shelter of such guards and sanctions, human as well 
as divine, has the Catholic Church been enabled to hold on her 
changeless course, and exhibit an example of permanence, in. 
defectibility, and unity, to which the whole history of human 
systems afford no parallel ; sustaining herself, unblenched and 

" Paul said, 'We speak wisdom among the Perfect, but not the wisdom of 
this world.' Every one of these men (the heretics) affirms that this wisdom 
is in himself; that he findeth it of himself, — namely, the fiction which he hath 
invented. So that, according to them, the truth is said to be sometimes in 
Valentinus, sometimes in Marcion, sometimes in Cerinthus, and, after that, 
in Basilides. When again loe appeal to that tradition, which is delivered from 
the Apostles, and which is preserved in the Church by a succession of Elders, 
they then turn against tradition." 

* The Synodal epistle of the Council of Zerta, drawn up by St. Augustin, 
thus tells the Donatists : — " Whoever is separated from this Catholic Church 
however innocently he may think he lives, for this crime alone, that he is 
separated from the Unity of Christ, will not have life, but the anger of God 
remains upon him." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



31 



unbroken — with the single exception of the partial schism of the 
Eastern Church — through a period commensurate with the ex- 
istence of Christianity itself, and, amidst all the changes, eclipses, 
and wrecks of all other institutions, delivering down the same 
doctrines from father to son, through every age ; while of all the 
leaders of sects opposed to her, from Simon Magus down to 
Luther, not a single one has been able to frame a creed for his 
followers, the articles of which have remained unaltered beyond 
his own lifetime. 



CHAPTER XX. 

A Dream. — Scene, a Catholic Church — time, the third century. — Angel 
of Hermas. — High Mass. — Scene shifts to Ballymudragget. — Rector's 
Sermon. — Amen Chorus. 

This train of thought into which I had been led by the cere- 
monies of the morning, and which continued, more or less, to 
occupy me during the remainder of the day, was doubtless the 
cause of a strange dream by which I was visited that night, and 
which, for the benefit of all those who have any fancy for such 
" children of the idle brain," I shall here relate. 

I found myself seated, as I thought, in the middle of a great 
church, in some foreign land, and, according to the impression 
I had on my mind, in the Third or Fourth Century. From the 
lights, the incense, and the sounds of psalmody that rose around, 
I could not doubt that I stood in some temple of Catholic worship, 
and, by a still greater miracle of fancy, was reconverted into a 
good, orthodox Catholic myself. On looking round, however, 
through the crowd of fellow-believers that encircled me, I was 
filled with astonishment at the varieties of hue and habit which 
they exhibited ; — the Roman, the Carthaginian, the Gaul, the 
citizens of Athens and of Jerusalem, of Corinth and of Ephesus, 
the Alexandrian and the Spaniard, all seated round, arrayed in 
the different garbs of their respective countries, and waiting, in 
solemn silence, the opening of the Mass. 

I now, for the first time, perceived, by my side, a youth of 
divine aspect, who regarded me with a smile of benevolence, 
that came, like sunshine, into my heart. He was habited in the 
manner of a shepherd of the old pastoral times, and on consider- 
ing his features more closely, I recognized in him the same 
friendly Angel who, in the garb of a Shepherd, had led Hermas 
through his series of Visions.* An exchange of salutations 
having passed between us, I was about to inquire after his old 



F 



See page 16 of this volume. 



82 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



pupil's celestial health, when he pressed his fore-finger on his 
lip, as a warning of silence, and, almost at the same moment, 
the first w r ords of the service broke on our ears. The venerable 
Priest who officiated seemed to my fancy a sort of compound 
being, made up from the descriptions I had read of some of the 
celebrated Fathers of the Church, — having the bald, Elisha-like 
head of St. Chrysostom, the upright eyebrows of St. Cyril, and 
" the beard prolix" (as Dr. Cave terms it) of the great St. Basil. 
Sometimes, too, as my dream shifted, like a morning mist, it 
appeared to me as if the holy personage ministering at the altar 
was no other than my good old confessor, Father O'H himself. 

The public part of the mass being now ended, the moment had 
arrived when, by the solemn form of words, " Depart in peace," 
those who had not yet been initiated by baptism were warned to 
retire, and the Faithful left to perform the dread Sacrifice among 
themselves. But who shall worthily describe lhat rite which 
followed ? Never shall I forget the effect, as it then presented 
itself to my fancy, of the still and unbreathing silence* of that 
vast multitude of Christians, — till, at the awful moment of com- 
munion, when, as the Priest, raising the sacred Host, pronounced 
it " the Body of Christ," the whole assembly fell prostrate, in 
adoration, before it, and the word - " Amen,"f as if with one voice 
and one soul, burst from all around. It was like a sweet and 
long-drawn peal of music, a concert of sounds, unbroken by a 
single breath of dissonance, from every quarter of this earth 
which the wind visits, — all blending in the belief of an incarnate 
God, who by his flesh hath redeemed, and with his flesh still 
feeds, his creatures. 

So overpowering was the effect of this sound upon me that I 
had nearly waked with emotion ; — but the interruption was only 
momentary. Though the web of my dream had been broken, 
the thread was not altogether lost ; and, after a short interval of 
entanglement, I found myself again in company with the Angel- 
Shepherd, in the very act of proposing to him, that, in return 
for his condescension in thus procuring me a peep into a church 
of the third century, he would allow me the honor of treating 
him to a similar glimpse into one of our new-fashioned churches, 
or conventicles, of the nineteenth. 

Scarcely had the words passed my lips, when by a sudden 

* ^yhen the Priest, says St. Chrysostom, stands before the Table, stretch- 
ing out his hands to heaven, invocating the Holy Spirit, that he would come 
and give the contact, all is stillness and silence — noWri /jo-u^ia, 7roXXfj aiyr). 

f " In the very form of communion, the whole primitive Church made a 
solemn and public profession of the truth of the body of Christ in this Sacra- 
ment. The Priest, in giving it, spake these words, Corpus Christi, that is, 
the body of Christ, and the communicant answered Jlmen, that is, it is tme." 

Rutter on the Eucharist. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



shift, of scene, we were, at once, transported away to the Parish 
Church of Ballymudragget, and arrived just as the rich and 
roseate Rector of that place was ascending the pulpit, to read 
over to his half-a-sleep flock the last ready-made sermon he had 
purchased. The church appeared to me to have been, in some 
marvellous manner, enlarged for the occasion, and was now 
thronged with a dense multitude of persons whom, by that intu- 
itive knowledge given only to dreamers, I knew to consist of ail 
the various sects and denominations into which — with a vitality 
as infinitely divisible as that of the polypus itself — English Pro- 
testantism has been subdivided ; and as, in the first stage of my 
dream, we had witnessed the spectacle of a variety of nations 
with one religion, so w r e now had before us the Reformed fashion 
of one nation with a variety of religions ; — there being collected 
there (to mention but a few r of the diversities of faith that pre- 
\ seuted themselves) Calvinists, Arminians, Antinomians, Inde- 
pendents, Baptists, Particular Baptists, Methodists, Kilhamites, 
Glassites, Haldanites, Bereans, Swedenborgians, Quakers, Sha- 
kers, Ranters, and Jumpers. 

It w^as said of the great St. Ambrose that he had a peculiar 
talent for smelling out dead martyrs ;* and no less quick a scent 
did my friend, the Angel, appear to have for live heretics. For, 
perceiving instantly the difference between these moderns and 
the old, regular Christians he had been accustomed to, he beg 
ged, in a whisper, that I would explain briefly to him the partic- 
ular form of heresy to which they belonged. The task was 
puzzling : — just as reasonably, indeed, might he have inquired 
of me the particular form and color of the motes in a sunbeam. 
Not liking, however, to appear uncommunicative, I at once in- 
vented a generic name for the whole assembly, and told him the 
people he saw around us were Suists,f — so called, from following 
each his own way in religion, and only taking care in forming 
his peculiar creed, that it should as little as possible resemble 
the creed of his neighbor. 

Unluckily for this definition of mine, the discourse of the 
Reverend Rector happened to turn upon the one, only point on 
which his auditors were entirely unanimous, — namely, contempt 
and detestation for the ancient Catholic Church, its doctrines, 
observances, traditions, and teachers. To describe the astonish- 

* "Idem Praesul (says Daill£, gibingly, in speaking of the great Bishop 
of Milan's discovery of the two buried Saints, Gervasius and Protasius) quo 
nemo fuit in odorandis ac cernendis sub terra quantumvis alta Reliquiis 
sagacior et acutior." 

f " No common name being to be found, fit to comprehend our sectaries, 
but that of a Suist, one that follows his own dreams or fancy in choice of 
Scripture, and interpretation of it." — Dr. Carter's Motives far Conversion to 
the Catholic Religion, 1649. 



84 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



ment of the Angel at the specimen of BallymudraggetChristianity 
now presented to him would be a task beyond my powers. When 
he heard the solemn words of our Lord in instituting the Eu- 
charist, t% Hoc est corpus," &c, profanely travestied into " Hocus 
Pocus ;"* when he was told gravely by the preacher that to 
maintain the corporal presence of Christ in the Sacrament is as 
absurd as to declare " an egg to be an elephant, or a musket-ball 
a pike,""]" — I saw ms celestial brow darken, at once, with sorrow 
and disdain, and he was only roused from the thoughtfulness into 
which such blasphemies plunged him, on hearing the preacher 
mention Luther as the Apostle of this new Gospel he was ex- 
pounding to them. J " Luther," muttered the Spirit to himself; 
and then, turning quick round to me, exclaimed. " Luther ! — 
who is he ?" 

Somewhat startled to find the illustrious author of Protestant, 
ism so entirely unknown to my angelic friend, I proceeded to 
inform him of the few particulars I myself, at that time, knew of 
the great Reformer ; — viz., that he was a monk of the order of 
St. Augustin who, about the year 1520, undertook to bring back 
the primitive purity of the Gospel ; — that one of his first step* 
towards this object was to renounce his vows of chastity and 
marry a runaway nun whose views of reform, it appeared, co 
incided with his own ; — that, still in furtherance of the same pious 
design, he struck up, as he himself informs us, an intimacy with 
the Devil ; by whose friendly advice he pronounced the ancient 
Sacrifice of the Mass to be a nuisance, and abolished it accord- 
ingly ;§ that 1 was thus, to the infinite wonder and horror of 

my companion, proceeding, when we both perceived that the 
portly Preacher had concluded his discourse ; and all further 
communication between us was put an end to by the scene that 
followed. 

Immediately on the conclusion of the Reverend gentleman's 

* It is no less a person than Tillotson who, in one of his writings, has de- 
scended to this ribaldry. 

f " It might well seem strange, if any man should write a book to prove 
that an egg is not an elephant and that a musket-ball is not a pike." — Tillot- 
son on Transubstantiation. 

I The Reverend Preacher, however, had done injustice to Luther, who, 
as far as a belief in the Real Presence went, (and without considering the 
modus,) was perfectly orthodox. 

§ See Luther's own account of this famous conference, which he evidently 
believed himself to have held, with the Devil, on the subject of Private Masses, 
and the result of which was as above stated. — De abrog. Miss. priv. Had 
we not the recital of tins strange illusion from the Reformer himself, who de- 
scribes all particulars of the Devil's tone of voice, his off-hand manner of 
arguing, &c, such an instance of mental drivelling in so great a leader of 
human opinion would have been altogether inconceivable. He tells us, too, 
that his scenes of this kind, with the Devil, were frequent. — "Multas noctes 
mihi satis amarulentas et acerbas reddere ille novit." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



85 



sermon, an Amen Chorus, — got up, it would appear, in direct 
opposition to the symphonious strain we had heard some fifteen 
centuries before, — broke forth from the whole motley mass of 
Protestantism around us. Heavens, what a crash !— Not that 
celebrated pig-instrument, invented for the special amusement of 
Louis XV, could, with all its scale of grunts and squeaks mul- 
tiplied a million-fold,* come, in the least degree, into comparison 
with the varieties of discord in which this general and prolonged 
Amen was uttered forth ; — the deep, damnatory growl of the 
Calvinist, and the exclusive shriek of the Particular Baptist 
(shrill as the screaming of a sea-fowl in the storm) forming the 
treble and base of this most discordant scale. Every moment, 
too, some new subdivision of dissonance was added to the original 
stock* till, at length, to so loud a pitch did the charivari swell, 
that no powers of sleeping, however dogged, could withstand it. 
In an instant, the whole visionary assemblage was put to flight : 
and, on awaking, I found myself lying, with one of the contro- 
versial volumes of the Rev. G. S. Faber, Rector of Long Newton, 
resting heavily on my chest. I had been employed in reading 
the volume when I dropped oft* to sleep, and its influence and su- 
perincumbence more than sufficiently accounted both for the long 
and deep slumber into which I was thrown, and the sort of Pro- 
testant nightmare under which I had awaked. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Search after Protestantism suspended. — Despair of finding it among the 
Orthodox. — Resolve to try the Heretics. — Dead Sea of Learning. — Bal- 
ance of Agreeableness between Fathers and Heretics. 

I had, by this time, as my readers will easily believe, got not 
a little sick and weary of my search after Protestantism ; a 
search hopeless, I found, as that of the Bramin, in the Eastern 
Tale, whose wife sent him all over the world, on a fool's errand, 
to look for the Fifth Volume of the Hindoo Scriptures,-)- — there 

* A sort of instrument, played with keys like a harpsichord, or organ, in- 
vented, it is said, by some Abb£, for the amusement of Louis XV, in which 
pigs of different ages and tones, from the youngest to the oldest, were placed 
so as to form the treble and bass of the scale. According as the performer 
played, a spike at the end of each key produced the tones desired, while a 
muzzle was so contrived as to act the part of damper, and stop the mouth 
of each pig as soon as his note was uttered. The whole was then covered 
in, so as to appear like an instrument, and the Abb6, it is stated, performed 
upon it, in the presence of the Court. 

t The Tirrea Bede, or Fifth Veda. — See, for this lively story, (a part of 
which closely resembles Chaucer's January and May,) the collection called 
the Bahardanush. 

8 



86 



TRAVEL? OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



never having been but Four. Tired of my learned studies, and 
mortified to think how much time I had lost with them, I, for 
some weeks, gave up sullenly all thoughts of conversion, and was 
fast relapsing into what the Abbe la Mennais calls Indifferent- 
ism, on the subject. It happened just then, however, that some 
circumstances connected intimately with that domestic secret to 
which I have so frequently alluded, but which must a little 
longer remain veiled in mystery, occurred to rouse me out of the 
listless apathy into which I had sunk, and make me feel that. — 
no matter what my scruples or convictions, — I must take to 
Protestantism, of some description or other, immediately. 

The thought of finding, among the orthodox of the early 
Church, any creed but that of Popery, was now, of course, out 
of the question. I had still, however, a fond hankering after 
those primitive ages, and knowing what power there is in an- 
tiquity to lend a grace to error, thought that if, even among the 
heretics of that venerable period, I could discover a little of the 
primeval Protestantism I had been looking for, it would be, at 
all events, no upstart heresy of a few centuries, but would, at 
least, have that degree of hoary heterodoxy about it which, if my 
conscience must give way, would throw dignity round its fall. 
Nor had I much fears of being disappointed in this object of my 
now crest-fallen ambition ; for thus did I argue : — if the Catholic 
Church (as has been but too clearly demonstrated) held, in those 
early ages, the very same doctrines which she holds at present, 
those who, at that period, dissented from, or protested against, 
her doctrines, must have been, in so far, Protestants ; and though 
it does not always follow that two parties who differ with a third 
will agree with each other, yet was it natural to hope that among 
the grounds on which the Anti-Catholics of that time bottomed 
their heresies might be found some of those which have since 
furnished the basis of Protestantism. This glimpse of hope 
again awakened all my inquisitive energies ; and, like a return 
of lost scent to the beagle, sent me once more, in full cry, after 
my game. 

I have already remarked that the persevering Unity of Faith, 
which the Catholic Church has, through all ages, in pursuance 
of the Divine injunctions, maintained, could by no other device 
of human policy have been preserved than that which the See 
of Rome, as visible Head of the Christian world, has ever 
adopted, — namely, the repression of all private interpretation of 
Scripture, and the assertion to herself of the right of being at all 
times, and on all points of faith, the guide to truth, the expounder 
of Scripture, and the judge of controversy. "Truly," says Gregory 
of Nazianzum, in speaking of the mischiefs that arose from the 
exercise of private judgment, — "there should have been a law 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



87 



among us, whereby (as, among the Jews, young men were not 
allowed to read certain books of Scripture) not all men, and at 
all times, but certain persons only, and on certain occasions, 
should be permitted to discuss the points of Faith." — Or at. xxvi. 
Sr. Jerome, too, in a passage whose just sarcasm will be found 
to fit some of the Bible-expounders of the present day as closely 
as if they had been measured for it, thus speaks: — "In all me- 
nial arts there must be some one to show the way : — the art of 
understanding the Scriptures alone is open to every reader ! 
Here, learned or unlearned, we can all interpret. The tattling 
old woman, the doting old raa;., the wordy sophist, all, all here 
presume ; they tear texts asunder, and dare to become teachers 
before they have learned. — Ep. L. T. iv. Pars. 11. 

To look for Protestantism — whose very corner-stone is the 
right of private judgment — in a Church whose system it has 
been, from the first, to acknowledge no such right, was, I now 
perceived, a gross mistake, — a mistake into which nothing but 
my entire ignorance of the Rule of Faith prescribed to the Primi- 
tive Christians could have led me. For, after all, in this point, 
— in the latitude given. to private interpretation, — lies the broad 
and essential distinction between the Catholic Church and hem, 
opponents, under whatever forms or at whatever periods such 
opponents may have appeared. The test, indeed, is as true and 
as applicable to the respective parties in the first century as in 
the nineteenth ; and in whatever age, however early, we find 
professed Christians questioning or rejecting the authority of 
the Church, and grounding their opposition to her rites or doc- 
trines upon the Scriptures, as interpreted by themselves, we may 
be assured that there is already at work the spirit of Protestantism. 

Having come to this conclusion, I now, once more, betook 
myself to my folios, — once more plunged into that Dead Sea of 
Learning which is so little suited to a diver of light bulk, like 
myself,* and over which never hath the wing of Fancy been 
known to fly without drooping. It is true, my present course of 
study lay through a far more varied line of road than that by 
which 1 had before travelled. In my researches hitherto, I had 
kept chiefly to what the Fathers call " the Royal Road of Ortho- 
doxy ;" — whereas I was now about to track Heresy through hei 
by-lanes and cross-ways ; to beat up, as it were, the haunts of 
Heterodoxy, and ascertain to what extent Protestantism had 
burrowed among her coverts. As far as amusement goes, my 
readers will be, I should hope, gainers by this change of route. 

* In explanation of these metaphors of my young friend, I may as well 
state, that the difficulty of diving into the Dead Sea was noticed as far back 
as Strabo's time ; and that the effect of its exhalations on birds that fly over 
it, is a common but, I believe, unfounded notion. 



88 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Good company, says a French roue, is a good thing, but bad <» 
better ; and just so did I find the balance of agreeableness be- 
tween my Fathers and my Heretics, — the respectability being aK 
of course, on the former side, while the amusement is on the 
latter ; there being, in fact, no conceivable freak or vagary of 
opinion into which, at the early periods of the Church I am 
about to speak of, that will-o'-th'-wisp, Private Judgment, did not 
lure his weak followers. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Capharnaites the first Protestants. — Discourse of our Saviour at Caper- 
naum — its true import. — Confirmatory of the Catholic doctrine of the Eu- 
charist. 

It is melancholy to think how soon Heresy intruded itself into 
the Christian fold ; and how, in the same manner as the blessed 
abode of our first Parents was scarce called into existence before 
the Spirit of Evil contrived to enter and darken it with his doubts, 
so Christianity had hardly opened her second Eden to mankind, 
before the same Evil intruder, with the same tongue of reasoning 
and heart of guile, came to question her mysteries and throw a 
blight over her blessings. 

One of the first instances, and by far the most signal, that 
occur in the History of Christianity, of this sort of questioning 
spirit, this rising up of the judgment against Faith, to which ah 
the Heresies and Schisms that have occurred since owe their 
rise, is to be found in the memorable speech of the Jews of 
Capernaum, when our Saviour first announced the great mystery 
of the Eucharist : — " How can this man give us his flesh to eat V 

We have here, I repeat, one of the first recorded protests of 
Private Judgment against the mysteries of the Church of Christ. 
It is, therefore, of importance to examine a little into the details 
of the great transaction it refers to; and we shall find, I think, 
that could the various texts of Scripture levelled against " the 
wisdom of this world" have left us any room to doubt of the in- 
finitely low r estimate at which human reason and its conclusions 
are rated in the eyes of heaven, the little deference paid by 
Christ, on this occasion, to the reasoning powers of his auditors 
would be, in itself, a sufficient evidence of the humbling truth ; 
would, of itself, sufficiently teach the presumptuous Spirit of 
Private Judgment how sacredly the precincts of Faith are meant 
to be guarded from its intrusions. 

Our Saviour had told them, " the bread which I will give you 
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." Had 
the hearers of these words understood them to have been used 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



89 



metaphorically by the speaker, neither wonder nor scandal could 
possibly have resulted from them. But it is evident the whole 
assembly understood his language literally, and while the Apostles 
were silent and, with implicit faith, "believed on him that God 
had sent/' the Jews and many even of his own disciples mur- 
mured at such hard doctrine. We can even imagine, at that 
juncture, some Capharnaite divine, some Tillotson of the Syna 
gogue, thus addressing his flock : — " Surely, my beloved brethren, 
it can never enter into any of our minds that this man will lite- 
rally hold himself in his hand, and give away himself, from him- 
self, with his own hands."* With far more grounds and decency, 
indeed, might the Capharnaites have urged such an objection, 
seeing that they interpreted the promised eating of the Lord's 
body in a carnal sense ; even so much so (says St. Augustin) 
as to suppose that he meant to cut up his own flesh in bits and 
distribute it among believers.f 

The Redeemer saw what was passing in their minds, as well 
as in those of his disciples,^: — who, however less gross and car- 

* See Tillotson, on Transubstantiation, whose words are here repeated 
verbatim. It is not a little curious that the representation which Tillotson 
gives of this miracle, for the purpose of throwing ridicule on it, is the same 
that the Fathers did not hesitate to put foward as an enhancement and 
proof of its stupendous nature. Thus St. Augustin, in a passage already 
cited, — "When, committing to us his body, he said, This is my body, Christ 
was held in his own hands.'''' "Our Lord gave his body (says St. James of 
Nisibis,) with his oion hands, for food." 

| " Many who were present, not understanding this, were scandalized ; 
for, hearing him, they thought of nothing but their own flesh. He therefore 
said, 'the flesh profiteth nothing ;' that is, it profiteth nothing, as they under- 
stood it ; for they understood it to mean flesh, as it is in a dead body, or as 
it is sold in the market, not as animated by life." — August. Tract. 27. It is 
supposed by other divines that these words, " the flesh profiteth nothing, it is 
the spirit that quickeneth," had reference rather to the agency of the Holy 
Spirit, by whose descent upon the elements, according to the belief of the 
early Church, their transformation into the body of Christ was effected, and 
the vivifying virtue communicated to them. 

I In remarking upon the exclamation of the Jews — " How can this man 
give us his flesh to eat?" Cyril of Alexandria says, "They reflected not, that 
nothing is impossible with God. But if thou, O Jew, continuest yet to urge 
this Hoxo, I will ask thee hoxo the rod of Moses was changed into a serpent? 

how the waters were changed into the nature of blood ? For our 

parts, let us derive great instruction from the iniquity of others ; and cherish- 
ing a firm faith on these mysteries, let us never, on so sublime a point, either 
in words express, or in thoughts entertain, this J/oio." — Com. in Joan. The 
following declaration, drawn up by St. Cyril and approved by the Third 
General Council, may be considered as conveying the belief of the Catholic 
Church on this subject : — "We receive it (the Eucharist) not as common 
flesh : far be this thought from us ; nor as the flesh of a sanctified man, and 
united to the Word by an equality of honor, or as having obtained a divine 
inhabitation ; but we receive it as the truly vivifying and mon flesh of the Word 
made man. For as the Word, as God, is essentially life, the moment it be- 
came one with its flesh, it imparted to this flesh a vivifying virtue. Where- 
fore, although Christ said — * Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and 



90 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 

nal might have been their notion of the mystery, not the less 
murmured at its incomprehensibility, and, in consequence, med- 
itated that secession from their Master, of which they were 
afterw T ards guilty.* Here then was the important moment — 
important to all eternity,— when, the divine teacher and his dis- 
ciples being confronted with each other, the question between 
Reason and Faith, between Private Judgment and Authority, was, 
for the guidance of future ages, to be brought solemnly to a de- 
cision. Here assuredly was the moment when, if Christ had 
not truly and really meant what he had spoken,— when, if there 
had been any figure of speech or allegory in his words, on 
whose correct interpretation no less a stake than the eternal life 
of mankind depended, he had not only an opportunity, but, if I 
may venture so to say, was bound by the conditions of his high 
mission, to explain away any such perilous ambiguity ; nor, 
mysterious as was the nature of the sacrament itself, to leave 
also the needless mist of metaphor hanging over it. If, in short, 
to conciliate human reason, by smoothing away difficulties which 
must, to the end of time, he knew, startle and alienate the "weak 
in faith," — if any such deference to human doubts and judgments 
ever entered, but in the remotest degree, into his purposes, then, 
I repeat, would have been the moment for him to evince such 
deference, and by so doing authorize the jurisdiction of Reason 
over Faith for ever after. 

But did our Lord thus act ? did he, indeed, show any such 
consideration for the judgment of his hearers, or attempt, in the 
slightest degree, to explain or soften down his own startling an- 
nouncement ? Did he (as has been done for him, in modern 
times,) confess that, on so solemn an occasion, he had made use 
of a most forced and unnatural metaphor, and that, by eating 
his flesh and drinking his blood, he meant nothing more than 
believing his doctrine 1 Did " the great Proclaimed' of this 
miracle endeavor to fritter away its wonders, and bring them 
down to the low level of the faith of his hearers, by averring, in 
the language of the Sacramentarians, that the bread and wine 
were but the signs or symbols of his body, or by assuring them, 
with the Calvinists, that it was by a mere act of faith they were 
to partake of his flesh, while the body itself would be, at the 
time, as remote from them as heaven was from the altar ? Did 
our Saviour, I ask, do thus ? Let the sacred text answer the 
question. So far from offering such explanations, — any one of 

drink his blood, you shall not have life in .you,' (John vi, 54,) we are not to 
imagine that it is the flesh of a man like to ourselves, but truly the flesh of him 
{ifoav aXriScJs yevofievnv) who for us was made and was called the Son of Man." 

* " From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more 
with him." —John vi, 66. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



91 



which would have sufficiently diluted away the difficulties of 
the doctrine to render it easy and palatable to the stubborn 
judgment of his auditors, — the Divine Master, as if to show how 
easily he could " bring to nothing the understandings of the pru- 
dent," deigned no otherwise to answer their objections or their 
murmurs than by repeating, in still more emphatic language, the 
declaration that had so astounded them : — " Verily, verily,* 1 
say unto you, except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and 
drink his blood, ye have no life in you." 

The whole conduct, indeed, and language of our Saviour, 
throughout this most memorable scene, stands as an eternal re- 
buke to the presumption of human Reason, in its vain attempt 
to fathom such " heavenly things ;" while the awful announce- 
ment then made of the miraculous Feast about to be instituted, | 
followed up, as it was, on the solemn night of Institution, by 
those simple and irrefragable words, " This is my Body,":j: form 
the grounds of that implicit Catholic belief, which the Church 
of Christ has, at all times, maintained, and which, however Ca- 
pharnaites may still scoff, and loose disciples still murmur, will 
never, as long as the one Catholic Church endures, pass away. 

* It is supposed by some that the word Amen, as repeated here, is a posi- 
tive oath ; and Basnage is, if I recollect right, one of the authorities for its 
having been employed in that sense by the Jews. However this may be, the 
word, doubtless, imports a very high degree of asseveration ; and " to suppose 
(as Johnson remarks) that our Saviour used it only to justify a very cate- 
chrestical expression, is to suppose that a wise and humble teacher was so 
fond of a figure as, for the sake of it, to give occasion to his hearers to desert 
him." In the curious Conference represented to have passed between 
Charles I and the Marquis of Worcester at Ragland, the latter, in remarking 
on the opinion of those who suppose Christ to have spoken figuratively on 
this occasion, says justly, " There would not have been so much difficulty in 
the belief if there had not been more in the mystery ; there would not have 
been so much offence taken at a memorandum, nor so much stumbling at a 
figure." 

t So far were the ancient Christians from supposing that our Saviour in- 
stituted so momentous and wonderful a nte without any announcement, any 
preparation of the minds of his followers for suchgtfin event, that they ac- 
counted naturally for the calmness with which the Apostles heard the awful 
words of institution by the previous knowledge of the nature of the Sacrament 
which Christ had, in his discourse, (John vi,) communicated to them. Thus 
St. Chrysostom: — "He transferred them to another banquet; a banquet 
most tremendous, saying, 1 Take, eat, this is my body.' How was it that 
they were not seized with terror, when they heard this ? Because he had 
previously discoursed with them at large upon the subject." — Homil. lxxxii, 
in Matt. 

\ " Let "us not break (said Gaudentius) that most solid bone, 'This is my 
body — this is my blood ;' but if any thing remain in it which individuals do 
not understand, let it be burnt away by the ardent fire of Faith." — Tractal. 
\i, de Pasch. 



92 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Docetae, the earliest heretics. — Denial of the Real Presence.— Simon 
. Magus and Ms Mistress. — Simon a Protestant. — Delight at the discovery 
— The Ebionites. — The Elcesaites. 

Thus far I had been as fully successful in my new line of search 
as I could desire, — having found that great and leading principle 
of Protestantism, the right of private judgment, starting, as it 
were, into existence almost coevally with the birth-hour of our 
faith, and making the first trial of its strength against the living 
words of our Saviour himself. We have next to consider the 
workings of the same headstrong principle, as manifested in 
the various heresies that rose Against his Church ; and it is not 
a little remarkable that the very first sect of heretics we meet 
with, the first instance of dissent from Catholicity on record, 
should turn on the same trying point that had already called 
forth the " How" of the Capharnaites, — that point which, as from 
the first it has been a stone of stumbling to the weak in faith, so 
will it continue, I. have no doubt, to be a test of the true believer 
in Christ's words to the last. The sect with whom this Mother 
Heresy originated, was that of the Docetse, already mentioned, — 
a branch of the Gnostic Christians, nearly as old as Christianity 
itself, who gave as their reason for refusing to join in worship 
with the orthodox, that they could not acknowledge the bodily 
'presence of Christ in the Eucharist.* 

Thus do errors, like comets, come and go, while Truth, like 
the sun, remains always stationary. Though the grounds on 
which these heretics denied the Real Presence were different, 
of course, from those on which it was rejected by Protestants 
fifteen hundred years after, yet was the result they arrived at 
precisely the same ; — insomuch, that could one of those Gnostic 
Christians now reappear upon earth, he would find nothing in the 
unreal and figurativa^presence, maintained by Church of England 

* It was but by some branches of the Docetse that the Eucharist was re- 
jected ; the greater number of them appear to have celebrated it, but only in 
the Protestant sense, as a mere type or emblem : — " Professant tous le Dokc- 
tisine, les Gnostiques qui conservoient la G£ne n'enseignerent jamais l'union 
reelle de l'homme avec la chair eu le sang du Sauveur ; cet acte qu'ils cele- 
braient en presence de leurs catechumenes et qu'ils rangaient dans la cate- 
gorie des choses exoteriques, rfetoit pour eux que Vembleme de leur union 
mystique avec un etre appartenant au Plerome." — Hist, du Gnosticisme. To 
the Marcionites of the next age, who had also their Eucharist, — though be- 
lieving, with the Docetae, that Christ's body was but apparent, — it was vn;ged 
as an argument, both by Irenaeus and Tertuljian, that in owning the Sacra- 
ment of the body and blood, they confuted their own opinion. Will it still, 
after all this, be contended that the ancient Christians did not believe in the 
Reality of the Presence? 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



93 



divines, that could, in the slightest degree, offend his most anti- 
corporeal notions, or prevent him from being conscientiously a 
partaker of their Sacrament. 

At last, therefore, I had the pleasure of finding myself in 
something like good Protestant company ; and, knowing that to 
the heretic, Simon Magus, is attributed the high honor of being 
the head of the whole family of Gnostic Christians, I proceeded 
forthwith to inform myself of all such particulars as are known 
concerning the parent of so worthy a progeny. Undoubtedly, 
wherever the presumption of human judgment is the theme, this 
Arch-Heretic has a paramount claim to be remembered, — seeing 
that he pretended to understand Christianity better than Christ 
himself. There are, indeed, some curious coincidences between 
his career and that of the Arch-parent of the Protestant Refor- 
mation, to which, though at the risk of appearing illiberal, I 
cannot help adverting. One of his first steps, for instance,, in 
setting himself up against Christ, was to take a young female 
companion to be the enlivener of his ministry, — declaring (with 
a flight beyond Luther) that he himself was the incarnate Power, 
and his mistress the incarnate Wisdom, of God.* Another point, 
in which it may be said that the two Reformers resembled each 
other, lay in the alliance formed by both with " the nether em- 
pire ;" Simon Magus being well known to have had demons for 
his familiars,"]" and the famous conference between Luther and 
his Devil, on the subject of the Mass, being, as is well known, 
one of the most memorable events of that great Reformer's life.:]: 

Having satisfied myself thus far, as to the practice of Simon, 
I lost no time in inquiring into the nature of his doctrine ; and it 
may be imagined with what pleasure, on opening the pages of 
the historian, Theodoret, I discovered the following passage : — 
" He (Simon Magus) ordered those who believed in him not to 

* This lady's name was Helena; and, among the various steps of that 
descending scale of transmigration through which she was represented to 
have passed, before she sank into the capacity of Simon's concubine, she had 
had the honor, it was said, of being, in her time, no less a personage than 
that celebrated Helen whose beauty provoked the War of Troy. 

f Hence the Magia Demoniaca, or Black Art, is traced to Simon as its 
inventor. It is but fair, however, to say that some learned persons have 
doubted whether the Simon mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles was the 
game with the Heresiarch of the Gnostic Sects. Among others, the learned 
Frieslander, Vitringa, is of opinion that they were two different persons. 

t It is amusing to observe the irritation which any allusion to this famous' 
colloquy is sure to produce in the temper of most Protestant controvertists. 
Unable to get rid of Luther's own statement of the matter, all that they have 
for it is to deny stoutly that this conference had any influence on his opinions 
concerning the Mass. We are, indeed, assured gravely by Claude and 
others, that Luther had both written and spoken publicly ngainst the sacri- 
fice of the Mas3 two years before any of these suggestions of the Devil were 
made to him. 



94 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



attend to the Prophets, nor to fear the threats of the' Law, but to 
do, as free persons, whatever they wished ; for that they would 
obtain salvation, not by Good Works, but by Grace."* Here was, 
at last, Protestantism, in its fullest perfection, — the very princi- 
ple, in fact, on which the authors of the Reformation first started, 
however their followers, and even some of themselves, saw rea 
son to shrink from its consequences afterwards ; — here was the 
same Antinomian spirit which dictated the declaration of the 
Lutherans in 1557, that good works are not necessary to sal- 
vation — and here was the basis also of Calvin's inamissible 
grace, which renders even the worst works no obstacle to the 
eternal blessedness of the Elect. So rejoiced was I to light, at 
last, on a sample of genuine Protestantism, — from the same 
source, too, where the denial of Christ's bodily Presence origi- 
nated^ — that I could not help breaking out in the language of 
Ulysses, when he, at length, found himself in sight of Ithaca, 
after all his wanderings, — 

A-inracntos teov ovSag iKavojiai. 

or, as I translated it at the moment in my rapture,— 

Hail, Faith of Protestants — thou home 
To which so long I've sigh'd to come. 
To seek thee need no longer plague us, 
Thou'rt found, at last, in Simon Magus. 

It may be suspected, perhaps, that one of the chief ingredients 
of my satisfaction at this discovery was the malicious pleasure 
it gave to certain Popish feelings, still stirring within me, at be- 
ing thus able to trace two of the most elemental and vital doc 
trines of Protestantism to such a source as Simon Magus ; and 
I had, myself, I confess, certain misgivings as to the mixture of 
some such leaven with my joy. Resolving, therefore, to be gen- 
erous, I repressed at once all unworthy triumph, and thinking it 
better even to go without Protestantism altogether than to come 
by it in this suspicious and disreputable manner, I dismissed 
Simon Magus entirely from my mind, and hastened on in quest 
of some more respectable creed-master. 

Never yet has there been an extreme opinion started in this 
world, that there was not an opposite extreme ready to start at 

* Ov Sia irpa^toiv ayaBuv a\\a Sta %apiTOS rev^Eo-Oat tt)S (rwrripias. — Haer. Fab. 

f At the conference held, by order of Charles V, at Worms. We know 
that Amsdorf, a warm disciple of Luther, even went so far as to maintain 
that Good Works were an obstacle to salvation. 

J From Simon the doctrine of the Docetas, or Phantastics, took its origin : 
— " Q-uoniam Christum Dominum (says Le Grand, under the head of Simon) 
non veram carnem assumpsisse, nec ejusdem cum nostra naturae esse pro- 
fitebatur, ejusdem in Eucharistia praesentiam confiteri nolebat. — Ignatius ap. 
T/ieodoret. Dial. 3. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



95 



the same time. Thus, to the Docetae, who held that Christ was 
entirely divine, there was opposed a counter-heresy, that of the 
Ebionites, who held, with the Protestant Unitarians, that he wis 
merely human. It was, indeed, by dividing the double nature 
of our Saviour between them that these two sects contrived to 
make out their two heresies, — the Docetae allowing that he was 
God, but not man,* and the Ebionites contending that he was 
Man, not God. 

Akin to the Ebionites,f in maintaining the simple humanity 
of the Saviour, were the Elcesaites, a sect of heretics, half Jews, 
half Christians, and (if not very much misrepresented) entire 
maniacs. As if to make up to Christ for depriving him of his 
divinity, they attributed to him a human form ninety-six miles 
long, and twenty-four broad ; and this measurement they con- 
sidered themselves authorized to make by the words of St. Paul, 
(Ephes. iii, 18,) where he exhorts Christians to be " able to com- 
prehend, with all Saints, what is the breadth, and length, and 
depth, and height," of Christ. The Holy Ghost they supposed 
to be a female, and of much the same dimensions as Christ ; and 
the learned reason they gave for this peculiar notion of the Spirit's 
sex was that Raouah, the term in Hebrew for the Holy Ghost, is 
of the feminine gender ; besides (added these reasoning Chris- 
tians,) the inconvenience of having two Fathers for Christ is, by 
this interpretation, avoided. 

Notwithstanding these blasphemous absurdities, the descendants 
of the man, from whom the sect was named, continued through 
a long course of time to be honored as " the Blessed Race," 
and, so late as the reign of Valens, we hear of two sisters of this 
hallowed breed being held in such extravagant veneration by the 
people, that not only the dust from their feet but even the spittle 
from their mouths were caught up with enthusiasm by the crowd 
and preserved in boxes as a charm against all ills. 

* Some of those Gnostics who held that Christ wore only the appearance 
of man, got over the difficulties of the crucifixion, as they thought, by saying 
that, on the way to Mount Calvary, he changed shapes with Simon of 
Cyrene, who carried the cross, and that Simon was the person really cru- 
cified by the Jews, while Christ stood by, invisibly, laughing at their mistake. 

f It was the opinion of the Ebionites that God had given the empire of all 
things to two persons, Christ and the Devil ; that the Devil had full power 
over the present world, and Christ over the world to come. — Fleury, Hist. 
Mcclesiast. 



96 



TRAVEL'S OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

Scriptural learning of the Gnostics — their theories. — Account of the sys- 
tem of the Valentinians. — Celestial Family. — Sophia — her daughter.— 
Birth of the Demiurge. — Bardesanes. 

To those who have observed how invariably, throughout the 
history of Christianity, the multiplication of heresies, schisms, 
and innovations in faith has been, at all times, in direct proportion 
to the diffusion of the Scriptures among the people, it will afford 
no surprise to learn that the Gnostic heretics, by whom such a 
flood of fantastic errors was let loose in the first ages, were of 
all the Christians of that period the most versed in Scripture, 
and the most laborious in quest of texts to suit ther mischievous 
purposes.* So industrious, indeed, are they known to have 
been in this line of research, that, notwithstanding the blasphe- 
mies and extravagances with which their writings abounded, 
Erasmus mourns, as a biblical scholar, over the loss of the works, 
on account of the wonderful stores of scriptural knowledge which 
they contained. 

To such as hold, in direct opposition to the Catholics, that 
the Sacred Volume cannot be too widely thrown open, — who 
call out for the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible 
for all classes of readers, it may not be uninstructive to produce 
some examples of the use heretofore made of this privilege, and 
more particularly to show what were the recondite truths and 
mysteries which those learned searchers of the Sacred Volume, 
the Gnostics, professed to find in its pages. 

To enter into any detailed exposition of the various systems 
which these heretics put forth, — each new system but presenting 
a different modification of the same Magian theory of the Two 
antagonist Principles, - ]" — would be a task far beyond my present 
purpose. The solution of the great problem of the Origin of 
Evil was the object at which all these elaborate and, in some 
few instances, poetical inventions aimed ; and, in most of them, 
the theory of a Good and an Evil Principle is combined with the 
notion, also Eastern, of cfertain spiritual existences or iEons, 
supposed to have proceeded by emanation from the one Supreme 
Fountain of Being.J In the system of Valentinus, however, of 
which I am about to give some account, this process of Emana- 

* "II n'est guere d'opinion dans leurs riches theories qu'ils n'aient tacheV 
d'appuyer de quelques passages des Ecritures." — Histoire du Gnosticisme. 

f These principles they called the Two Roots : Svo pi$as oiSa, irovripav koli 
ayadnv. — Dial, de recta fide. 

I This perfect iEon, existing before all things, they described as dwelling 
■ on some " invisible and unnameable heights :" ev aoparots kcu axaTovonacrTois 
iil'wuatri. — Irenazus. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



97 



tion was, under the sanction of the doctrine of Christ's Son-ship, 
exchanged for that of Generation ; and how prodigal was the 
use made by the heresiarch of this orthodox precedent, the fol- 
lowing sketch of his system, collected from Irenaeus and other 
writers on ancient heresies, will show. 

He supposed the unknown and inaccessible Father to have 
dwelt, from all eternity, in silence and repose, accompanied only 
by a certain Power, or Intelligence, that served him as consort, 
and by which, or whom, in the fulness of time, he produced a 
son and daughter, bearing the names of Nous and Aletheia. This 
pair, in their turn, gave being to another couple called Logos 
and Zoe, and these again to a fourth pair, Anthropos and Ec- 
clesia. All these eight iEons he pretended to find expressly 
named in the opening verses of the Gospel of St. John. 

This process of spiritual procreation having been thus carried 
on, couple after couple, through fifteen generations, the number 
of Thirty spiritual beings, or iEons, came at last to be collected, 
forming altogether that Pleroma, or Plenitude, of spiritual ex- 
istence, to which St. Paul, said these heretics, clearly alludes in 
the Epistle to the Colossians, i, 19. — "For it pleased the Father 
that in him all Fulness should dwell." The exact number, too, 
of Thirty iEons is, said they, manifestly figured by the thirty 
years of his life during which Christ remained concealed from 
the world. 

Of the last bom of the fifteen couples that composed this ce- 
lestial family, the female, whose name was Sophia, or Wisdom, 
happened, by some accident or other, to slip out of the Pleroma 
into infinite space ; and 'there, alone and bewildered, would in- 
fallibly, it is supposed, have been lost, had not Horus, who seems 
to have acted as a sort of watchman of the Pleroma, gone in 
quest of the stray Spirit and brought her safe back again. She 
aad, however, during her short absence from home, given birth 
tc a daughter, who, though spiritual like her mother, was, from 
jhe peculiar circumstances under which she was born, and her 
exclusion from the bright region of the Pleroma, unformed and 
Regenerate. The fall of this twelfth Mon (Sophia) is, they 
/iftege, marked out in the fall of Judas, the twelfth apostle, as 
Veil as by the disease of the woman, in Matthew ix, 20, which 
had lasted twelve years, and which the power of Christ, like that 
cf Horus, stopped and healed. 

In the meantime, Nous, — by the especial foresight of the 
Fpther, who wished to guard against any diminution of the Mm 
family by the occurrence of such another accident as had hap- 
pened to the Sophia, — added a new couple of Beings, male and 
female, to their community, namely, Christ and the Holy Ghost, 
by whom the security of the Pleroma and the union of its hea- 
G 9 



98 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



venly occupants was ratified. From Christ they all learned tu 
know the Father, or, rather, were taught to content themselves 
with knowing that he is incomprehensible ; while by the Holy 
Spirit they were instructed how to laud this great Being and to 
dwell together in perfect unity and repose. In testimony of their 
gratitude for this state of blessedness, the zEons agreed, with the 
full consent of the Father, to produce, among themselves, by 
joint contribution, Jesus, or the Saviour, — each furnishing to- 
wards the production of this new Being whatever was most 
;xquisite in their own natures, so as to render him the flower 
>f the whole Pleroma, — and hence is it (said the Valentinians) 
that St. Paul declares of Jesus, the Saviour, that "in him 
Iwelleth all the Fulness of the Godhead." 

While within the Pleroma all this joy prevailed, in the dismal 
i egion without, the poor offspring of Sophia (herself distinguished 
hy the name of Sophia- Achamoth) was left, a formless abortion, 
• o wander through the void. Once, pitying her distress, Christ 
stretched forth his cross to aid her ; but though his touch gave 
form and life, it imparted not science, and, accordingly, still was 
the lone outcast abandoned to her fate, experiencing all the 
misery of desire without knowledge, and left a prey to the va- 
rious passions of sadness, fear, and anguish, which have since 
become the lot of the humanity that sprung from her. 

In this state of suffering she, at last, turned to him who gave 
her life, and that one movement of conversion changed her 
whole fate. Sent graciously down by Christ to her aid, the 
Saviour came attended by his angels, and releasing her from 
the yoke of the passions, without altogether extinguishing them, 
bestowed upon her at last the long-desired gift of knowledge. 
Her look of joy, we are told, at this deliverance, was felt through 
all Chaos, and from that first smile of Sophia-Achamoth the 
origin of light is to be dated. From this moment, too, began 
that series of creative and procreative operations by which this 
world and all that it contains was produced. The various off- 
springs, spiritual, psychic, and material, to which Sophia anc 
her new friends, the angels, gave birth between them, it is nol 
easy to describe and still less so to understand. Suffice it tt 
say, that out of this commerce sprung that inferior God, or De 
miurge, by whom, according to all the Gnostic sects, this visible 
world was created. 

Such was the fanciful account given by Valentinus of the 
events that happened, as he supposed, in the world of the Un- 
known Father, before the creation of this ; — such the wild tissue 
of fiction which its inventor boasted to have derived from the 
secret communications of Christ himself to his apostles, and 
which was, strange to say, adopted by a large portion of the 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



99 



Christian world, extending even into Gaul and Spain, during th 
second and third centuries.* 

Had we only the vague and forced applications of Scripting 
by which the Valentinians supported this fantastic theology -tt 
assist us in judging of the Gnostics,j" as interpreters of Hol\ 
Writ, our opinion of their ingenuity in this line must have fallen 
far short of their reputation. Of the speculations, however, of 
some of their other sects enough has been preserved, — more par- 
ticularly of the Marcionites, on the subject of the Old Testament, 
— to show that, in applying their wild theories to Scripture, they 
were at least sufficiently acute to be mischievous ; and, above 
all, to show at what an early period an opening was made foi 
infidelity by the adoption of that proud, Protestant principle, the 
right of Private Judgment, and the desertion, in consequence, of 
those only true and safe guides, the Apostolical Traditions and 
the Authority of the Church. 

Through all the other Gnostic sects the same system of JEon 
ogony prevailed, the points of difference between their theories 
lying more in the details than in the principle. Thus Bardes. 
anes, though adopting the same notion as to the succession of 
the iEons by syzygies or couples, yet so far changed the order 
of their genealogy as to make Christ the immediate son of the 
Father, by that companion whom he had, in the silence of his 
solitude, created unto himself. Next after Christ, too, in the 
order of being, came the sister and spouse of Christ, the Holy 
Ghost ; and a union having taken place between these spiritual 
personages, two daughters, we are told, named Maio and Sab 
scho, were their offspring. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

The Gnostics, believers in Two Gods. — The Creator and the Unknown 
Father. — Their charges against the Jehovah of the Jews. — Marcion — hi? 
Antitheses. — Apelles. — Belief in Two Saviours. — Hatred of the Jewish 
Code. — Ophites. — Marriage of Jesus with Sophia Achamoth. 

However differing from each other in the superstructures of 
their respective theories, there was one fundamental principle 

* It was not till towards the beginning of the fifth century, that the Valen- 
tinians may be said to have dwindled away. Gregory of Nazianzuin, who 
died towards the close of the fourth, represents them as then among the 
almost extinguished sects. 

f " Ces allegories et ces personifications se comprenaient encore parfaite- 
ment an second siecle de notre ere ; cependant, des que les docteurs ortho- 
doxes sc furent separds distinetement des partisans de la Gnose, ils Ieur en 
firent des objets de reproche ; et S. Ephrem ne rapporte qu'en tremblant le 
blaspheme de Bardesanes, qui osoit donner deux filles au Saint Esprit."— 
Histoire du Gnosticisme. 



100 



TRAVELS OF ATS IRISH GENTLEMAN 



upon which Valentinians, Marcionites, Basilidians, &c, all built, 
namely, that the God of the Old Testament, whom they held to 
be the Creator of this world, is a wholly different being from the 
God of the New ; — the latter being, according to them, the Un- 
known and unapproachable Father, of whom Christ was the son, 
and by whom, in his mercy and goodness, Christ was sent down 
to earth, to repair the evils which the Demiurge, or Creator, 
had caused. In support of this bold theory they refer to the 
contrast, both in spirit and precept, which is so strikingly, they 
allege, exhibited between the Law and the Gospel, and maintain 
it to be impossible to believe that both could come from the same 
hand. While the Being revealed by the Saviour, said they, is 
a God of Mercy and Love, the Jehovah, or Demiurge, was a 
God ignorant, unjust, vindictive, and inconsistent. 

Of the ignorance of the Jehovah, one of the instances they 
give is his not knowing where Adam was, when he sought him 
in the garden, nor whether he had yet eaten of the forbidden tree. 
" And the Lord God called unto x\dam, and said unto him, Where 

art thou ? hast thou eaten of the tree ?" But, though 

most of their articles of impeachment against the Creator are 
either thus frivolous, or fanciful, there are some that have ap- 
peared sufficiently acute and searching to be thought worthy of 
revival by modern infidels. For instance, his incapacity, they 
say, as a Creator, was manifestly proved by his having so ill- 
performed his task, in creating Man, as to be forced to repent 
him of his work, and even to resolve on destroying all living 
things (Genesis, vi, 6, 7.) The advice given by him to his chosen 
people, on their departure from Egypt, to despoil the Egyptians 
of their valuables, under the pretence of borrowing them, was 
the ground of another of those daring charges against the God 
of the Jews, in which these heretics but anticipated the profane 
scoffs of Voltaire and his followers. In ridiculous consistency, 
too, with the name KctAapoi, or Puritans, which, like some mod- 
ern Protestants, a few of these sects assumed, one of the minor 
faults they objected to the Jehovah was, his habit of swearing, 
and — what appears to have been, in their eyes, an aggravation 
of the offence — swearing by himself. The only merit, indeed, 
they seemed inclined to allow to this Being w r as that of candor 
as to his own evil-doings, — he himself having, as they said, ac- 
knowledged, through his organ, Isaiah (xlv, 7,) that darkness and 
evil were the work of his hands. 

It was in support of this peculiar view of the two dispensations 
that the Gnostic chief, Marcion, exerted particularly, as I have 
already said, his acumen and zeal. To show how opposite were 
the characters of the Jewish and the Christian God, and how 
much at variance with each other, in spirit, are the Law and 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



101 



the Gospel, this heretic drew up what he called " Antitheses,"' 
in which the precepts of the two codes are brought in contrast 
with each other. Observe, said he, the difference ; — by the Cre 
ator the principle or fierce retaliation is inculcated,. " eye for eye 
and tooth for tooth," (Exod. xxi, 24,) while by the Saviour we 
are forbidden to return even an insult (Luke, vi, 29.) Jesus 
cured the blind (John, ix ;) — David, on the contrary, hated and 
ill-treated them (2 Samuel, v, 8.) The Messenger of the Su- 
preme God suffered little children to come unto him, and blessed 
them (Mark, x, 14, 16 ;) — the messenger of the Creator cursec 
them, and gave them to be devoured by bears (2 Kings, ii, 24.) 

With some ingenuity, too, he cited, as confirmatory of hi' 
doctrine, the following verse from St. Paul's Second Epistle t< 
the Corinthians : — " In whom the God of this world hath blindec 
the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious 
Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine untc 
them." By " the God of this world" is to be understood, said 
Marcion, the Demiurge, or Creator, in contradistinction to the 
good God, or Father of Jesus Christ, who is the God of the 
Christians. So dangerously strong in his favor was this passage 
considered, that, in order to evade its force, Tertullian and Ire- 
naeus were for putting a comma after " God," so as to separate it 
from the words, " of this world," and thus strain the structure 
of the sentence to the following meaning : — " In whom God hath 
blinded the minds of the unbelievers of this world." 

That Christ himself meant to establish an opposition between 
the old and new order of things appears clearly, this heretic said, 
from his discourses against the Law and the Prophets, and such 
allusions to the incompatibility of the two dispensations as are con- 
veyed in those sayings, " no man putteth wine in old bottles," 
and " no man can serve two masters." A similar allusion to the 
the Law and the Gospel he professed to find in the words of the 
Apostle, " the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," which mean 
clearly, he maintained, that the code of Moses left man in death, 
ignorance, and vice, while the sublime revelation of the Christos 
imparts the Pneuma, or breath, of Divine life. 

He found also, as he thought, a precedent for his antithetical 
theory in the language held by St. Paul to the Judaizing Chris- 
tians, and in the contrast drawn by that Apostle between the 
Jewish and Christian Dispensations, as being, the former but a 

* It would appear that this sort of antithetical comparison was a favorite 
weapon with the heretics, even in St. Paul's time, who warns Timothy to 
avoid tbo ni/riQeacis rris rpsvSojvojiov yvwsetos — " the antithesis of the falsely- 
named Gnosis, or Gnosticism;" for such, it appears to me, ought to be the 
translation of the words, and not, as now, " oppositions of science falsely 
so called." 

9* 



102 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



type, the latter the substance ; — the one transitory and peculiar 
the other universal and permanent. 

When once, in religion, a departure from the right line com- 
mences, each succeeding step but increases the deviation ; — anc 
this was remarkably exemplified in the course of all the succes* 
sors of these ancient heresiarchs. Apelles, one of the disciple* 
of Marcion, improved upon the daring criticism of his master 
and in a work similar to the Antitheses, to which he gave tho 
name of Syllogisms, not only brought forth again all the alleged 
contradictions between the Old and New Testaments, but labored 
to point out such inconsistencies and contrarieties between dif, 
ferent parts of the Hebrew Scriptures themselves as, if proved, 
must have considerably weakened, if not entirely overturned theii 
authority.* 

One of the most instructive lessons we learn, perhaps, from 
history, is to know that the same principles, whenever acted upon, 
will be found, almost invariably, to lead to the same consequences. 
Just such results as we see here brought about by the presump- 
tion of individual judgment and the rejection of authority again 
flowed from the unbridled outbreak of the same restive principles 
at the Reformation ; heresy being, in both cases, the pioneer of 
infidelity, and the fancied triumphs of reason but ending, at last, 
in the death of all faith. 

Having thus established two Gods, these Gnostic heretics could 
not be long in finding out that their system would be incomplete 
and inconsistent without having also two Saviours ; — the attri- 
butes of the promised Messiah of the Jews being, according to 
their view, wholly different from those that characterized the Son 
and Messenger of the Supreme Father. The one had been an- 
nounced as a conqueror, and as the restorer of the Jewish Em- 
pire, while the other came to bring peace and salvation to all 
people. j - The Saviour of the Demiurge was (according to the 
Creator's prophet, Isaiah,) to be called Emmanuel, which was 
not, said they, the name of Christ ; and while the former had 
been promised as the Son of David, the latter altogether dis- 
claimed the relationship. The solution which they gave of the 
whole difficulty was, that the real Saviour, unknown and unan- 

* The very same system has been pursued by Voltaire, in his attacks on 
the Old Testament (See Diction. Philosoph. &c.) : — "En effet (says the 
author of the Histoire du Gnosticisme) Marcion articula contre les codes et 
les institutions Judaiques plus d'accusations ou, si Ton veut, plus de blas- 
phemes qu'il n'en est sorti de la bouche des libres penseurs ou des esprits 
forts du ISe siecle." 

| The Rabbins supposed, in the same manner, that there would be two 
Messiahs: the one poor, miserable, and devoted to death; the other, the 
restorer of the Jewish Empire. To Josephus, too, has been attributed the 
absurdity of believing that Christ was one Messiah, and the Emperor Ves- 
pasian the other. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



103 



nounced as he had been to the world, was not unwilling to take 
advantage of the hope of a Messiah which the Prophets of the 
Creator had diffused among mankind, in order that by passing 
himself off as the Deliverer expected so long, he might the more 
effectually perform the great mission intrusted to him and eman- 
cipate this w r orld from the yoke of the Demiurge. Leaving, 
therefore, the supreme Heavens of his Father, and traversing 
those of the Creator, he assumed, on approaching earth, the out- 
ward semblance of a man (without having recourse, said they, to 
the unworthy expedient of human parentage and an incarnation) 
and made his appearance, for the first time, among men, in the syn- 
agogue of Capernaum, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius. 

Entertaining notions so dark of the God of the Israelites, and 
of his Code, it was but consistent in these heretics to hold all 
connected w 7 ith the Jewish Dispensation in the utmost horror. 
To such a length w r as this antipathy carried by them that the 
Marcionites, w r ho made it a rule to fast on a Saturday, professed 
to do so from a mere feeling of spite to the Creator wiio had 
commanded the Jews to hold a feast on that day ; and a branch 
of the Gnostics, called Antitactse, did not hesitate to acknowledge 
that they infringed the commands of the Jewish God, solely be- 
cause they were his. 

But the sect which most systematically, and, considering the 
principle on which it was founded, most consistently followed up 
these views of the Old Testament, was that of the Ophites, or 
Serpentinians, by whom all persons who had, since the creation 
of the world, been known to have suffered for their opposition 
to the Creator's will, were regarded with affection and venera- 
tion as victims of an unjust God, and as martyrs to the hope of 
a better order of things under the Supreme Being and his son. 
Cain, for instance, was revered by them with peculiar fervor, 
and over the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah they mourned most 
religiously. But the great object of their worship, and that 
from which they derived their name, was no other than the ori- 
ginal Serpent himself, who, so far from being, as the world sup- 
poses, a tempter and deceiver, was, according to these dreamers, 
man's earliest and best benefactor. The command given to our 
first parents not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge was but a de- 
vice, said they, planned by the jealous Jehovah to detach man 
from his protectress, the heavenly Sophia, and debar him from 
all knowledge of celestial things. That good iEon,* however, 

* Among the titles given by the Valentinians to their Sophia was that of 
Kvoos, or Lord ; and Tertullian ridicules them with, perhaps, somewhat 
more facetiousness than beseems a grave Father of the Church, on the con- 
fusion which, in this and in other instances, they fell into, respecting her 
sex : — " Ita," he says, " omnem illi honorem contulerunt fceminae puto et 
barbam. — ne dixerim caetera." — Adv K Valentin. 



104 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



ever watchful over her charge, resolved to baffle the Creator 
and sending Ophis, one of her Genii, in the form of a serpent, 
into Paradise, ordered him to persuade Adam to break this ca- 
pricious law, and to eat of the fruit that would open to him all 
heavenly knowledge. According to some of the Ophites, too, 
this Serpent was no other than the Saviour himself, — as was 
manifest, they said, from the life-giving effects attributed to the 
brazen serpent in Numbers, xxi, 9, and the application of that 
type to Jesus, in John, iii, 14. 

On the same principle, and with no less daring absurdity, did 
a branch of this sect single out Judas from all the Apostles of 
our Lord, as the only one sufficiently deep in the counsels of 
Heaven, to know of what infinite importance it was that. Christ 
should be sacrificed by the Jews. Apprised secretly, said they, 
by the heavenly Sophia, that the consequence of this death would 
be the downfall, for ever, of the Zabaoth, or Jewish God, he felt 
himself bound to accelerate so blessed a result, and th is, by be- 
traying his Master, helped to save mankind.* For this insight 
into the true nature of the transaction, they professed to be in- 
debted to a Gospel written by Judas, which had descended to 
their sect, and was the only one, in their opinion, worthy of any 
credit. f 

With respect to the ultimate result that was to arise out of 
all this complex agency which the Gnostics supposed to be at 
work in the supernatural world, the consummation to which the 
Valentinians looked forward, as the crowning of the whole, was 
that finally all spiritual creatures shall be restored to their prim- 
itive nature, and, reaching at last the full maturity of perfection, 
shall ascend together into the Pleroma, there to dwell with the 
spiritual mates allotted to them, following, in this respect, the 
example of the Mon, Jesus himself, who shall then resume his 
high station in the celestial abode, linked for ever with his beati- 
fied bride, Sophia Achamoth 

* These were also among the opinions held by the Cainites, or venerators 
of Cain, who proceeded exactly upon the same principle, and, in most points, 
agreed with the Ophites. As all of these sects pretended to some special 
sources of information, the Cainites professed to have founded their peculiar 
tenets upon certain revelations made to them of those unutterable things 
which St. Paul had seen in his flight, or rapt, to the Third Heaven. 

f The sect of the Ophites is said to have been in existence so late as tho 
sixth century ; and that they were numerous and flourishing in the time of 
Ephrem Syrus, appears highly probable from the pains taken by that Saint 
to denounce and curse them. 

X In the Acts of the Apostle Thomas (one of the apocryphal books of ihe 
Encratitae and other heretics,) we find an Ode expressly relating to this 
celestial marriage. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



105 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Catalogue of Heresies. — The Marcosians, Melchisedeeians, Montanists, 
&c. — Why noticed. — Clemens Alexandrinus inclined to Gnosticism. — 
Tertullian, a Montanist. — St. Augustin, a Manichaean. 

Having dwelt so long on these few branches of the luxuriant 
Btem of Gnosticism, I have but little claim on the reader's pa- 
tience for more than a hasty glance at some of the other forms 
of this and its kindred heresies ; and the most compendious way, 
perhaps, will be to lay before him a short catalogue rahonnee of 
a few of the most remarkable of these sects that occur to me.* 

The Marcosians, as if to outdo the Trinity, established a sort 
of Quarternity in the Supreme Father, and maintained that the 
plenitude of Truth was to be found in the Greek alphabet, j" 
grounding their fancy upon these words in the book of Revela- 
tion — " 1 am Alpha and Omega." Their founder, Mark, too, 
not only asserted that God had had several children, but spoke 
of these children (says St. Irenseus) with as much confidence as 
if he had been present at all their births. 

The Melchisedeeians, as their name imports, selected Melchis- 
edec as the object of their worship, holding that he was a Dy- 
.nami's, or divine power, — superior to Jesus Christ, as being 
mediator between God and the Angels, whereas Christ was only 
mediator between God and Man. 

The Messalians, having read in Scripture that " the Devil 
goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour," 
and not content with a single prowler of this kind, imagined 
that the whole atmosphere was brimful of devils, and that people 
inhaled them with the vital air. In consequence of this idea, 

* To those who are curious in the study of ancient heresies, I beg to re- 
commend a work which, though compiled by a man of but little soundness 
of judgment, as regards his own opinions, is rich in information and refe- 
rences respecting the opinions of the heretics, — the Elenchvs Hccreticorum 
omnium of Prateolus. For a more concise account of the different .sects, Le 
Grand's Historia Hceresiarcharum may be consulted ; and those who prefer 
seeing the subject treated in a Protestant sense, will find it ably done by the 
.earned Ittigius, De Hceresiarchis cevi Apostolici, &c. 

f Allowing his fancy to be carried away by a false notion of the Logos, or 
Word, the founder of the Marcosians supposed those emanations from the 
Deity which composed the heavenly Pleroma to have proceeded from him 
originally as Words, consisting each of a certain mystic number of letters. 
Thus the first word which the Supreme Being pronounced was a syllable of 
four letters, every one of which became a distinct being, and composed what 
Mark called the first Tetrad. The second word was also of four .letters', 
and formed the second Tetrad, completing that amount of spiritual entities 
to which the Valentinians gave the name of the Ogdoad. The third word 
was often letters, and so on, — through an infinite series of arithmetical and 
inconceivable nonsense. 



106 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



their whole time was passed in spitting and blowing their noses, 
in the intervals of which latter exercise, they imagined that they 
caught glimpses of the Trinity. 

The Pereans, with a prodigality of divine means not very 
philosophical, established in their system three Fathers, three 
Suns, and three H^ly Ghosts ; and it is supposed to be against 
these sectaries that the xlthanasians of the present day are called 
upon to protest when they say that "there is but one Father, not 
three Fathers ; one JSon, not three Sons ; and one Holy Ghost, 
not three Holy Ghosts." 

The Montanists, a most numerous and long flourishing sect, 
took it on the word of their founder that he was the very Para- 
clete promised by the Redeemer to perfect his new Law of the 
Gospel. These heretics (who are not to be accounted any 
branch of the Gnostics) held that God had already made two 
unsuccessful attempts to save mankind, first through the medium 
of Moses and the Prophets, and, secondly, by his own manifesta- 
tion in the flesh. Both these plans, however, having failed, he 
was at last obliged to descend by the Holy Ghost, and divide 
himself, by a sort of triple inspiration, between Montanus and 
two ladies of quality, of no very reputable characters, who lived 
with him.* A particular branch of this sect, the Ascites, used 
to place near their altar a kind of bladder, well blown up, and 
dance round it, regarding the bladder as an emblem of that 
spiritual inflation with which they themselves had been favored 
by the Holy Ghost. Another branch, the Tascodrugitce, or Pat- 
talorinchitcB, made it a point of devotion to put their fingers upon 
their noses, or into their mouths, during prayer, professing 
therein, says St. Augustin, to imitate David ; — " Set a watch, O 
Lord, befdre my mouth ; keep the door of my lips."f (Ps. cxli, 3.) 

The Manichees. — On the heresy of Manes, which began to 
flourish towards the end of the third century, the departing Spirit 
of Gnosticism seems to have let fall its dark mantle. In imita- 
tion of Christ, the founder of the Manichees professed to have 
been born of a virgin, and also attached to himself twelve apostles, 
by one of whom false Acts were fabricated, and fathered on the 
Apostles of our Lord. 

It may appear to some persons but an idle task thus to rake 
up such blasphemous follies ; but, as showing the wantonness 
with which Private Judgment has, in so many instances, ca- 

* Prisca and Maximilla. Montanus boasted, that to himself and his two 
Prophetesses had been given the fulness of God's spirit; whereas to St. Paul 
it had been but imperfectly communicated, — that Apostle himself having 
confessed, (1 Cor. xiii, 9,) that he but " knew in part and prophesied in pa t." 

f Another wise sect, the Discalceati, in order to show the accuracy of their 
piritual knowledge, always wen1 without shoes, — God having said to Moses 
f Exod, iii, 5,) "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet." 



IN SEARCH OP A RELIGION. 



10? 



reered through Scripture, and the " fantastic tricks before high 
heaven" which, in these moods, it plays, such historical examples 
cannot be deemed unuseful. It should be recollected, too, that 
follies, however gross, become, when adopted by large portions 
of the human race, matters of grave import ; and there is hardly 
one of the wild, senseless systems I have here enumerated that 
did not occupy the boasted reason of mankind, whether in sup- 
porting or refuting it, through a lapse of many centuries. The 
Gnostic sects had each their special Gospels, either forged, or 
corrupted from those of the Evangelists ;* and each also adopted 
a peculiar Canon of Scripture, rejecting (as did Luther after- 
wards, in the case of the Epistle of St. James,) whatever hap. 
pened not to suit their respective purposes. The Marcionites, 
too, of Avhose wild system of Christianity I have just given some 
account, were able to boast not only martyrs, but a long sue- 
cession of bishops. 

Nor can we wonder that light, ordinary minds should have 
been whirled into these great Maelstroms of heresy, when, even 
among the Catholic Fathers themselves, some of the ablest were 
sucked into the vortex. In the Clementine Homilies, a work 
which, though not of that high parentage its assumed name im- 
ports, seems acknowledged to have been the production of some 
eminent Christian of the second age, it is said of the Sophia of 
the Gnostics, that God himself rejoices in her alliance. The 
language in which Clement of Alexandria speaks of the Gnosis 
breathes all the spirit of that sect ;f and, so late as the beginning 
of the fifth century, we find in the Odes of the Bishop Synesius 
such a display of Gnostic thoughts and phrases as renders them 
far more like the compositions of a Valentinian or Marcosian 
than of a Catholic Pastor. 

Of the catching influence of some of the other great heresies, 
we have yet more signal examples. The shrewd Tertullian was 
induced to believe in Montanus as the Paraclete promised b) ; 
Christ, and, for a time, surrendered his strong mind to the gros, c 
delusions of that impostor and his two inspired women of quality, 
St. Augustin remained attached to the sect of the Manichee? 

* Thus the Ebionites made use of the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew, 
leaving out, however, as contrary to their belief in the simple humanity o( 
Christ, the three first Chapters. Marcion composed a Gospel for himseff b} 
mutilating and altering that of St. Luke : and a question as to which was 
the most authentic, Marcion's Gospel or St. Luke's, has long been contested 
among the German Rationalists. The heretic Tatian, instead of choosing, 
like the rest, some one of the four Evangelists, or some apocryphal relation, 
nade a Code out of the four Gospels, which he called the Harmony of the 
Gospels. 

t The author of VHistoire du Gnosticisme goes so far as to assert that, 
c Plus on examine les opinions des premiers siecles plus la Gnosis y apparait 
corame philosophic dominante." 



108 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



till his thirtieth year ; and through him has the dark infection 
of this heresy been transmitted to succeeding ages, — even to the 
tinging of the sacred waters of Catholicity with its stain. A 
history, indeed, of the errors and extravagances of heresy* is 
but too closely connected with that of the human mind itself, as 
showing what derangement even the soundest intellects are ex- 
posed to by such extravasations of the life-blood of Faith out of 
those regular channels in which God designed it steadily and 
healthily to flow. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Discovery, at last, of Protestantism among the Gnostics. — Simon Magus 
the author of Calvinism. — Calvinistic doctrines held by the Valentinians, 
Basilidians, Manichaeans, &c. 

Though I may have been tempted, in the preceding chapters, 
by the curious nature of my subject, to indulge in somewhat more 
lengthened details, respecting the Gnostic sects, than the imme- 
diate purpose of these pages required, it must also, I think, have 
been observed that, in those apparently excursive inquiries, the 
main object of my pursuit has been seldom, if for an instant, for- 
gotten. Nor, even thus far, had I any reason to complain of a 
want of success in my researches ; since, as furnishing prece- 
dents for the free exercise of that great Protestant privilege which 
entitles every man to interpret the Scriptures according to his 
own judgment and fancy, the worthy believers in Sophia Acha- 
moth had come up to the full pitch of all that my most indepen- 
dent tastes could desire. Promising, too, as all this looked, it 
was but the dawn of what I had yet to discover among these 
heretics. In taking thus such independent and self-willed views 
of Scripture, they but started on a principle common to all man 
jiers of heresies ; — but I soon found that, as models for my pur- 
pose, their example did not stop here. In short, I discovered, to 
oiy great joy, that, in some of their leading doctrines, the Gnostics 
were essentially and radically Protestant.^ 

* How curiously, if not always usefully, an investigation of this kind may 
>e made subservient to the illustration of the Sacred text itself, has been 
Shown in those elaborate researches into the history of Gnosticism, with 
wnich Dr. Burton has, in his Bampton Lecture, enriched the learned world. 
Iz looking over this laborious work, I find a remark which I have hazarded 
some pages back, p. 249, (respecting the allusion contained in 1 Tim. iii, 20, 
to Gnosticism,) anticipated and confirmed. 

f I can answer confidently for my young friend, that at the time when this 
discovery presented itself to him, he was not, in the least degree, aware that 
the late Bishop Tomline had, in his Refutation of Calvinism, put forth the 
same curious fact; — one of the Chapters of the Bishop's work being entitled 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



109 



My readers, no doubt, will remember the exceeding joy and 
surprise with which, at the close of my long search after Pro- 
testantism in the first ages, I at length stumbled on a stanch Cal- 
yinist in the person of Simon Magus. " Not by virtuous actions 
(said this heretic) but by Grace is salvation to be attained." It 
will also, perhaps, be recollected that, from certain generous scru- 
ples, I then hesitated to take advantage of such disreputable 
authority ; and, though long foreseeing that my Protestantism 
must be of heretical descent, yet felt anxious, for the honor of all 
parties, that it should be of some better breed. To say the truth, 
too, I was not quite sure that this glimpse of genuine Calvinism 
might not be, after all, but a chance sparkle, and that I should 
see nothing more of it. On passing on, however, from the Arch- 
heretic to the numerous sects that sprung from him, I found this 
feature of the parent faithfully reproduced in all his offspring ; 
I found that they all, in some point or other, anticipated the Re- 
formed lights of Geneva and Wittemburgh ; and that if I had, 
at once, designated Simon Magus as the fount and wellspring of 
some of the most boasted of the Protestant doctrines, I should have 
asserted no more than it was now in my power indisputably to 
prove. 

The utter depravity of Man's nature, — -the insufficiency, or 
rather nullity of good works towards salvation, — the powerless- 
ness of the human will, — the doctrines of election, reprobation, 
and perseverance, — such are the great points of what is now. 
called " Vital Christianity" on which I found the very spirit of 
the Reformation reigning throughout these sects ; and could 1 
have been content to receive my Protestantism at the hands of 
Christians who believed in two Gods, two Saviours, and a ma- 
ternal Holy Ghost, I might from these Evangelical repositories 
have provided myself to my heart's content. 

In each of these Gnostic sects, for instance, there was a dis- 
tinct class of persons, who alone were thought sufficiently spiritual 
to be certain of salvation, while all others were considered re- 
probate and incapable of saving themselves. These chosen few 
.he Valentinians called the Elect Seed, holding that their faith 
did not come by instruction, but by nature and election. " They 
aifirm 3 " says Irenseus, " that they themselves shall be entirely 

as Allows : "Opinions of earliest Heretics bearing resemblance to Calvinism." 
The fact, however, of Calvinism being but a reproduction of the Gnostic 
and other heresies, is too obvious not to have struck learued observers long 
before the time of Bishop Tomline. The illustrious Dutch divine, Lindanus. 
in his Dialogues on the revival of ancient heresies, enforced ably and incon- 
trovertibly the same point ; and by the celebrated scholar Petavius, in the 
Preface prefixed by him to the works of Epiphanius, it is no less strongly 
asserted. 

10 



110 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



and completely saved, not by their own conduct, but because they 
are spiritual by nature."* 

The same doctrine of Election was maintained also by Basil- 
ides, — coupled with that other Calvinistic doctrine which neces- 
sarily results from it, the slavery of the human will : — " He tells 
us (says St. Clement of Alexandria) that faith is not the rational 
consent of a mind endowed with free-will. The precepts then, 
both of the Old and New Testament are superfluous, if any one 
be saved by nature, as Valentinus maintains, and if any one be 
faithful and elect by nature, as Basilides thinks." By another 
also of these heresiarchs, Bardesanes, it was, in like manner, 
asserted, that man can do nothing of himself, being a creature 
wholly without freedom, and impelled by irresistible decrees.^ 

The high Calvinistic tenets of the inamissibility of Grace and 
the Perseverance of the Elect were maintained as resolutely by 
the Valentinians as by the Synod of Dort itself. J " Gold," said 
they, " though fallen in the mire, is still gold, and loses nothing 
of its original lustre or nature. Even so is it with the Elect ; — 
let their conduct be what it may, they can never forfeit their high 
distinctive privilege." — {lrenmus.) The natural consequences 
of such dangerous doctrine showed themselves then, as on its 
revival, at the Reformation. " Wherefore," says the same writer, 
" those of them who are the most perfect do without fear all 
things which are forbidden." " I speak," says Clement of Alex 
andria, " of the followers of Basilides, who lead incorrect lives, 
as persons authorized to sin because of their perfection ;§ or 
who will certainly be saved by nature, even though they sin now, 
because of an election founded in nature." 

The Manichseans, from whom more directly w r as transmitted 
to our heretics the gloomy doctrine of the utter depravity of man, 

* A.VTOVS tic nj) Sia TTpa&ug aXXa Sia to cftvaei TTvevjxaTiKOVs tiven navrr) re kcu 
vavTCos SoyfjiaTL^ovo-iv coiBrjaeadmp. — Iven. 

f In the accounts given of the opinions of this heretic, there is some appa 
rent inconsistency. Though he was the author (as we know from Eusebius) 
of a work against Destiny, he is yet represented as having been an advocate 
for the doctrine of fatality. The truth seems to be, that he considered souh 
as exempt from the laws of destiny, but looked upon all connected with, 
bodies as under the control of fate and the stars. 

J " Such as have once received that grace by faith can never fall from f 
finally or totally, notwithstanding the most enormous sins they can commit. ; - 
Synod of Dort, Art. 5. Even the canting phraseology of our modern SainU 
is manifestly derived from the same source. Thus, St. Justin tells us ol 
tome of these Elect persons who said #f themselves that, " though they were 
sinners, yet if they knew God, the Lord would not impute to them sin." 

I Some of these sects, not unworthy forerunners of the Anabaptists, 
ueclared mat a community of goods and of wives was the just and true hap 
piness of their Elect: — 'BE na<TU)v ovaiwv Kai yvvaiKOiv nrjyri ttjs Betas egti <Wa:« 
otrwris: — which words form the commencement of one of those curious 
Inscriptions, said to have been found near Cyrene, and first published by the 
yarned Rationalist, Gesenius. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



Ill 



held also many of the other precious tenets that have descended 
with this bequest. " Manichseus asserts (says St. Jerome) that 
his Elect are free from all sin, and that they could not sin if 
they would." The same Father says, " Let us briefly reply to 
those slanderers who reproach us, by saying that it belongs to the 
Manichaeans to condemn the nature of man and to take away 
free-will." 

Here, then, had I, at last, accomplished the discovery, not only 
of a single sect, but of whole tribes and generations of Protes- 
tants ; — a discovery as unlooked for, and certainly far more au- 
thentic than that of the snug nest of Presbyterians, which Ledwich 
found out among the wilds of Tipperary, in the middle of the 
sixth century.* Could I have detected but a millesimal part of 
this high Protestantism among the orthodox of the first ages, how 
my heart would have rejoiced ! how my conscience would have 
been soothed by the discovery ! One particle, one drop of such 
true Geneva doctrine would have sent me to my pillow in com- 
fort. But, no — base, indeed, was the resource to which I now 
found myself reduced ; and accordingly, urgent as were my mo- 
tives for conversion, I came sturdily to the resolution that, rather 
than exchange the bright, golden armor of the old Catholic Saints 
for this heretical brass, lackered over by modern hands, I would 
submit to the worst doom my worldly fate could have in store 
for me. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Another search for Protestantism among the orthodox as unsuccessful as 
the former. — Fathers the very reverse of Calvinists. — Proofs. — St. Ignatius, 
St. Justin, &c. — Acknowledged by Protestants themselves. 

On returning again to the train of thought which had thus 
occupied me, and reflecting how lucky I should have accounted 
myself, could I have detected, among the orthodox of the Prim- 
itive Church, any such specimens of Protestantism, as I was 
here furnished with by the Gnostics, I could not help asking my- 
self, with some anxiety, was I, after all, so sure that no such spe- 
cimens could be found 1 had I, in fact, sufficiently examined into 
the dogmas of the early Church to have been fully satisfied that 
no such opinions as I have been detailing were among them ; or 
could it, indeed, be possible that the doctrines of election and re- 
probation, of the inefficacy of good works towards salvation, the 
slavery of the human will, the utter inability of man to do the 
will of God, — that all these doctrines, now dignified with the 

* The Culdees. 



• 



112 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



name of " vital Christianity," so far from being sanctioned by 
the authority of the early lights of the Church,* are to be found 
only in the distempered dreams of those heretical sects against 
which the Church had, from the first dawn of her existence, to 
combat ? 

Such were now the questions I put to myself, and, strange to 
say, unsuccessful as I had hitherto been in all my exploratory 
journeys into the region of orthodoxy, a last, feeble hope sprung 
up, that possibly, on a little further search, I might discover that 
the Gnostic heretics had not kept all the Calvinism to themselves, 
but that some foretaste of this sour fruit was to be found also 
among the Fathers. Seldom, I will do myself the justice to say, 
has any instance occurred of a chase followed up, through all 
reverses, with such unbaffled ardor ; — but, alas, this new hope 
was as fallacious as any of its predecessors. Instead of finding, 
in the works of the Fathers, the least shadow of a sanction for 
the horriblef notion, assumed alike by Gnostics and Calvinists, 
that a select portion of mankind has been singled out for salvation, 
while all the rest of the human race has been created but to be 
damned, I read in those authorized expounders of our Faith the 
very reverse of all this. I found in the excellent St. Justin the 
far different assurance that the seeds of the Divine Word are 
implanted equally in all men, and that all who have the will to 
obtain mercy from God are gifted also with the power. 

Still earlier did I read in the apostolic St. Ignatius that " if 
any one be pious, he is a man of God ; but if any one be im- 
pious, he is a man of the Devil, being made so, not by nature, 
but by his own will" Instead of the picture drawn of human 
nature by Bardesanes and Calvin, who describe man as a chained 
slave of destiny, without power or free-will, I saw him repre- 

* " What is that to us of the Church (says Origen) who condemn those 
who maintain that there are some persons formed by nature to be saved, and 
others formed by nature to perish." — Contr. Cels. 

f Ths very epithet which Calvin himself applies to his doctrine of Repro- 
bation: — "Decretum horribile fateor." "Is it not wonderful (says Bishop 
Tomline) that any one should ascribe to the God of all mercy a Decree 
which he himself confesses to be horrible ?" 

That the weapons of most modern heresies are but those of the old ones 
refurbished, is a remark which has been more than once suggested in theso 
pages ; and, as an illustration of it, we may observe that the very same texts 
now relied upon by the Calvinists, for the support of their favorite doctrines 
of election and reprobation, were those referred to, for the very same purpose, 
by their predecessors, the Gnostics, no less than sixteen or seventeen hun- 
dred years ago. After quoting several of these texts (Gal. i, 15, 16 ; Rom. i, 
1 ; Jerem. i, 5 ; Ps. li, 5, xxii, 10, lviii, 3,) St. Jerome says: "The Heretics 
who pretend that there are different natures, and that the one is saved and 
that the other perishes, maintain from these passages that no one would be 
understood to be just before he did some good, or would be hated as a sinner 
before some crime was committed' unless there was a different nature of 
those who perish and of those who are to be saved." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



113 



sented in the pages of these same Fathers, a free, responsible 
agent, endowed with a self-determining power towards good or 
ill,* and having eternal happiness or misery dependant on his 
choice. " I find that man (says Tertullian) was formed by God 
with free-will, and with power over himself, observing in him no 

image or likeness to God more than in this respect 

The law also itself, which was then imposed by God, confirmed 
this condition of man. For a law would not have been imposed 
on a person who had not in his power the obedience due to the 
law ; nor would transgression have been threatened with death, 
if the contempt also of the law were not placed to the account 
of his free-will." 

Again, instead of depreciating, — as Simon Magus, and, after 
him, Luther and Calvin have done, — the efficacy of Good 
Works, thus triumphantly did I find a contemporary of the apos- 
tles extolling their high value. " Let us hasten with cheerful- 
ness and alacrity to perform every good work Let us 

observe that all just men have been adorned with good works. 
Arid even the Lord himself, having adorned himself with good 
works, rejoiced. Having therefore his example, let us fulfil his 
will ; let us work the work of righteousness with all our strength. 
We must ever be ready in well-doing : for from thence all things 
are derived." — St. Clement. 

But it is unnecessary to refer any further to the numerous 
citations 1 had collected to prove that, in none of the Fathers 
of the Church, before the time of St. Augustin, is any trace of 
those Protestant doctrines, now called Evangelical, to be found ;j" 
but that, on the contrary, while Simon Magus and his followers 
were engendering that dark brood of fancies which, in later 
ages, were to be again quickened into life by Calvin and Luther, 
the Catholic Church was, through the tongues of her great 
orators and teachers, asserting eloquently the Universality of 
the Redemption by Christ, the Freedom of the Human Will, J 
the precious efficacy of Good Works and Repentance, and the 
ability of every Christian to work out his salvation. It is un- 
necessary, I repeat, to take any pains to prove this fact, as 

* "He (St. Justin) speaks of aself-detenniningpowerin man (avrs^ovaiuv) 
and uses much the same kind of reasoning on the obscure subject of free-will 
as has been fashionable with many since the days of Arminius." — Jtiilner's 
History of the Church. 

f From a passage in the Institutes (Lib. ii. c. 5, sect. 15.) it is evident that 
Calvin himself considered Augustin to be the only one of all the ancient 
Fathers that could be cited as favorable to his doctrine. 

| "The Soul is endowed with free-will, (says Origen) and is at liberty to 
Incline cither way." To prove that "man has a free-will to believe or not to 
believe," St. Cyprian quotes Deuteronomy (xxx, 19): "I have set before 
you life and death, blessing and cursing : therefore choose life, that thou and 
thy seed may live." 

H 10* 



114 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



already a host of Protestant divines, of all schools of divinity, 
have conceded it. 

The Lutheran, Flacius, for instance, accuses those Fathers, 
who wrote soon after the Apostles, of being totally ignorant of 
man's natural corruption, and other such mysteries since dis- 
covered in the Gospel ;* while the Calvinist, Milner, pretending 
to find, in the first century, some glimpses of his own doctrines, 
confesses that, after that period, these evangelical truths faded 
away, and were by almost all the succeeding Fathers denied or 
forgotten. Of Irenseus and St. Justin, who wrote in the second 
century, he says : — " They are silent, or nearly so, on the Elec- 
tion of Grace ; and defend the Arminian notion of Free-will." 
After taxing St. Clement of Alexandria with a similar want of 
vital Christianity, he thus (with the arrogance so hereditarily 
characteristic of a sect of which Simon Magus, the self-consti- 
tuted rival of Christ, was the parent) cavalierly dismisses that 
learned Father : — * On the whole, this writer, learned, laborious, 
and ingenious as he was, may seem to be far exceeded by many 
obscure and illiterate persons at this day in true scriptural know 
ledge and in the experience of divine things." 

Well might the judicious Lardner, in noticing some similar 
instance of presumptuous judgment upon the Fathers, with happy 
irony, exclaim, — " Poor ignorant Primitive Christians, I wondei 
how they could find the way to heaven. They lived near the 
times of Christ and his Apostles. They highly valued and dili- 
gently read the Holy Scriptures, and some of them wrote Com- 
mentaries upon them ; but yet it seems they knew little or noth- 
ing of their religion, though they embraced and professed it with 
the manifest hazard of all earthly good things, and many of them 
laid down their lives rather than renounce it. Truly, we of 
these times are very happy in our orthodoxy ; but I wish that 
we did more excel in the virtues which they and the Scriptures 
likewise, I think, recommend as the distinguishing properties of 
a Christian." 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Return to Heretics. — Find Protestantism in abundance. — Novatians, Ag 
noetae, Donatists, &c. — Aerius, the first Presbyterian. — Accusations of 
Idolatry against the Catholics. — Brought forward by the Pagans, as now 
by the Protestants.— Conclusion of the Chapter. 

I had now taken my last, positively last, trip into the old 
orthodox world in quest of Protestantism ; and weary as I was 

* In the same manner Basnage, too, complains (Hist, des Eglises Ref.) that 
the ancient Christians expressed themselves " maigrement " on these subjects. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



115 



of so fruitless, so wild-goose a chase, it was with an ill zest * 
again returned to the study of my heretics, of whom I now began 
to be as much ashamed as FalstafF was of his regiment. Having 
imposed upon myself, however, the task of tracing Heresy through 
the Four first Ages, I was resolved to go through with my work ; 
and the same run of good luck in finding Protestants, — if good 
luck it could be called to find them where I did not want them, 
— among the heterodox and schismatic, still continued to attend 
me. Far less amusing, however, were these later acquaintances 
than my old Calvinist friends, the believers in Sophia Acha- 
moth ; and, whatever indulgence I might have been inclined tc 
feel towards Private Judgment in her skittish moods, I now 
found that to be dull, as well as heterodox, is a sort of superer- 
ogation not to be tolerated. I shall content, therefore, myself 
with singling out, from the heresies of this period, a few of those 
which, from their peculiarly Anti-Catholic doctrines, may be 
regarded as the chief channels through which the elements of 
Protestantism have been transmitted, in full Gnostic perfection, 
to modern times. 

And first, to begin with the Novatians : — these sectaries, who 
flourished about the middle of the third century, and whose 
founder is described by St. Cyprian as " a deserter from the 
Church, a teacher of pride, and a corrupter of the truth," were 
nevertheless, in their way, as good Protestants as need be, seeing 
that they denied stoutly to the Church the power of absolving 
penitent sinners, refused peremptorily to acquiesce in her au- 
thority and traditions, and made their appeal, as all other heretics 
have done, before and since, to Reason. The language, indeed, 
of St. Pacian,* in addressing one of these sectaries, may, with 
the simple substitution of the words placed between brackets, be 
applied with equal point by a Catholic of the present day to 
Protestants. 

"Who was it (he asks) that proposed this doctrine? was it 
Moses, or Paul, or Christ? No; it was Novatian [Luther.] 
And who was he ? was he a man pure and blameless, who had 

been lawfully ordained Bishop ? And what of all this, 

you will tell me ; — it suffices that he has thus taught. But when 
did he thus teach? was it immediately after the passion of 

* Of this writer, who flourished in the fourth century, Mr. Clarke (Succts 
sion of Ecclesiastical Literature) pronounces that he "was no less pious than 
eloquent;" adding, that "there are more errors of the Romish church, sup- 
ported in a holder way and with more direct evidence, in this Father, than 
perhaps in any other of double the bulk." With all these " blushing" errors 
" thick upon him," how comes it, let me ask, that St. Pacian was not consid- 
ered as an innovator by his contemporaries, but, on the contrary, had the 
reputation of being one of the most acute and orthodox divines of his day? 
The solution is not difficult. 



116 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Christ? No; it was nearly three hundred [sixteen hundred] 
3'ears after that event. But did this man follow the Prophets ? 
was he a prophet? did he raise the dead? did he work miracles? 
did he speak various tongues ? for to establish a new Gospel he 
should have done some of these things." The Saint then stating 
explicitly the Protestant principle upon which these heretics 
proceeded, " You say, we do not acquiesce in authority ; ice make 
use of reason? adds, " As to myself, who have been hitherto 
sa'isfed with the authority and tradition of the Church* I will 
not now dissent from it." 

Our next sample of good Protestantism is found among the 
Eunomians, a branch of the Arian heresy, and infected, as was 
Arius himself, with Gnosticism. The founder of this sect held 
also, with Valentinian, Basilides, &c, the convenient doctrine 
of the Perseverance of the Elect, maintaining that all who em- 
braced the truth (meaning thereby his opinions) would never fall 
from a state of grace. Among these saving opinions the prin- 
cipal was, that Christ is not consubstanial with the Father.* 
This excellent Protestant opposed himself also to the old Catholic 
practice of paying reverence to relics, and invoking the inter- 
cession of Saints ; calling, as St. Jerome tells us, by the face- 
tious name of " Antiquarians," all those who attached any value 
to the bones and relics of Martyrs. 

The AgnoetEe, or Ignorants, (as from their peculiar opinion 
they were called,) afford another strong example of that sort of 
heir-loom of error which heretics transmit to their successors, 
from age to age ; — our Saviour's professed ignorance of the time 
of the Day of Judgment (Mark, xiii, 32) on which these sectaries 
founded their cavils against his Godhead,j* having also furnished 

* The shrewd argument, as Cave pronounces it, by which Eunomius sup- 
ported this position, is as follows : — a simple Essence, such as is the Divine 
Being, cannot contain within itself two principles, of which one is begetting 
and the other begot ; or, (as I take to have been his 1 meaning, in somewhat 
plainer terms,) a simple Being, like God, cannot be at once the Begetter and 
the Begotten. 

f Among those texts which the dangerous ingenuity of Private Judgment 
has contrived to wrest into evidence against the Divinity of the Saviour, this 
referred to by the Agnoetae seems to have been found by the Fathers the most 
difficult to unravel. Some answered that the Son of God meant only that he 
had no experimental knowledge of the matter. St. Augustin endeavors to 
get rid of the difficulty by the very forced explanation that, by not knotting, 
in this passage, is meant his not making others to know. Some more modern 
theologians have contented themselves with the very simple solution, that 
" when Christ told his apostles he did not know on what day precisely the 
general judgment would take place, he very possibly did not give any actual 
attention to the circumstance." — (Forbes, Inst. Theolog. I. 3, c. 21.) The 
distinction of the two natures, established by the Council of Chalcedon, 
affords the only explanation of this and other such difficulties. While as 
God, Christ knew all things : there was much of which, as Man, he may be 
supposed to have been ignorant. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



117 



to that large class of Protestants, called Unitarians, one of the 
most plausible arguments for their still more extensive unbelief. 
And such is the cycle which errors seem ever destined to per- 
form, — vanishing away, from time to time, and then darkly re- 
appearing. The very same arms with which the detracters of 
Christ's divinity assailed the Catholic Doctors of other times, are 
Dut again furbished up by the Priestleys and Belshams against 
.he Trinitarian Divines of our own. 

The sect of the Donatists, which may be accounted rather a 
schism lhan a heresy, and which laid claim to exclusive orthodoxy 
for Donatist Churches, — saying that " God was in Africa, and 
not elsewhere," — have in so far a claim to be mentioned honor- 
ably in Protestant annals that they were the first Christians, I 
believe, who conferred upon the Catholic Church the polite title 
of " Whore of Babylon." 

We next come to a worthy precursor of the Presbyterians, 
Aerius, who, having in vain tried to be appointed a Bishop him- 
self, took his revenge by making war on all Bishops whatsoever,* 
declaring that they had no right to any superiority or jurisdiction 
over Presbyters. This early champion of the Kirk opposed also 
the Catholic practice of praying for the dead, and denied to the 
Church the power of instituting Fasts, saying that every one had 
a right to choose his own time of fasting. In the reason given 
by him for this latter claim of independence, namely, that it 
might be thus shown we were no longer living under the Law, 
but under Grace, may be observed the workings of that same an- 
tipathy to the Law and its precepts, which has been transmitted, 
through a regular succession of heretics, from the Christian 
Gnostics down to our modern Antinomians. My chief motive, 
however, for referring to the sect of the Aerians has been for the 
sake of the valuable testimony which their heresy affords to the 
antiquity of the solemn Cathplic rite of prayers for the dead, — 
their dissent from w r hich, in the middle of the fourth century, 
could never have drawn upon them, so decisively and generally, 
the brand of heresy, had not this practice descended to those 
times hallowed by ancient recollections, and sanctioned by the 
traditions of the Primitive Church. 

The same remark will be found applicable to some of the doc- 
trines of Vigilantius, who, though belonging properly to the com- 
mencement of the Fifth Century, may be allowed as a single ex- 

* In disappointed ambition may most frequently be found the source of 
those movements by which restless spirits have agitated mankind. Thus 
Marcion became a heretic, on being denied Church preferment; and, with 
the same feeling, Vanini wrote to the Pope that, if his Holiness did not give 
hirn a benefice, he would, in twelve months from that time, overturn the 
Christian religion. 



118 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



ception to the rule I have imposed upon myself of not extending 
these researches beyond the close of the Fourth. This heretic, 
who holds a high rank among the Protoplasts of Protestantism, 
was a writer of what, in the present day, would be called smart 
anti-popery pamphlets, — laughing, with some degree of humor, 
at the reverence paid by Catholics to Relics, and at the prayers 
of Invocation which they addressed to their Saints. " They light 
up," says he, "large tapers at midday, and proceed to kiss and 
adore a small handful of dust. It must, no doubt, be a mighty 
service to the Martyrs, thus to light up a few bad candles for 
those whom the Lamb, seated upon his throne, illuminates with 
all the splendor of his majesty."* 

We may here see how far from modern is the disingenuous 
trick of charging Catholics with being adorers of Relics and 
Images, in the very teeth of their own repeated disclaimers of 
such idolatry. The flat denial given by St. Jerome to the ribald 
charge of Vigilantius was, no doubt, as little listened to by the 
followers of that heretic as are similar declarations of the Cath- 
olics of our own days by the implicit readers of the lucubrations 
of the Rev. G. S. Faber and Co. — " We do not worship," says 
the Saint, " We do not adore either the relics of Martyrs, or An- 
gels, or Cherubim, or Seraphim, — lest we serve the creature 
rather than the Creator, who is blessed for evermore. But we 
honor the relics of the Martyrs, that our minds may be raised to 
Him whose Martyrs they are. We honor them, that this honor 
may be referred to Him w r ho says, " He that receiveth you, re- 
ceiveth me," (Matt, x, 40.) Again, he exclaims indignantly, 
" Thou madman ! who ever yet adored the Martyrs 1 who ever 
yet fancied that a mortal was a God V 9 

But this unfair policy of the adversaries of the Catholics is of 
a still more ancient date than even the times of St. Jerome ; and, 
like almost every other point in the relative position of the two 
parties, may be traced back as far as the Apostolic age. Even 
then was the same spirit of misrepresentation alive ; even then 
was the homage offered to the enshrined relics of an Ignatius or 
a Polycarp, denounced by scoffers at the Faith as being an idol- 
atrous transfer of that worship to the creature which belongs only 
to the Creator. That this was the case, in the instance of Poly- 
carp, appears by a letter from the Church of Smyrna, of which 
he was Bishop, giving* to the Faithful an account of all the cir- 
cumstances of his martyrdom. " It was suggested," say they, 
" that we would desert our crucified Master and begin to worship 

* In his answer to Vigilantius, St. Jerome says — "The Bishop of Rome, 
then., does wrong, in offering sacrifice to God over the venerable bone? <;f 
those dead men, Paul and Peter, (according to you, but vile dust,) anr *a 
regarding the tombs of those Saints as altars." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



119 



Polycarp. Foolish men ! who know not that we can never de- 
sert Christ, who died for the salvation of all men, nor worship 
any other. Him we adore as the Son of God ; but we show 
deserved respect to the Martyrs, as his disciples and followers. 
The Centurion, therefore, caused the body to be burnt. We 
then gathered his bones, more precious than pearls and more tried 
than gold, and buried them. In this place, God willing, we will 
meet and celebrate with joy and gladness the birthday of his 
Martyr, as well in memory of those who have been crowned be- 
fore, as by his example to prepare and strengthen others for the 
combat." — Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. 4, c. 15. 

Thus it is, as I have already observed, that the relativa posi- 
tion of the two parties, — the Catholic Church on one side, and 
the protesters against her doctrine on the other, — has been, from 
the first, and through all ages, virtually the same ; the old truths 
remaining still unchanged, and the old errors, like often-detected 
delinquents, reappearing again and again, under other names, so 
that, in fact, the Calvinism, Antinomianism, &c. of modern times 
are little else than aliases of the Gnosticism and Manichaeism of 
times past. 

Still more evident might this remarkable fact be made to ap- 
pear, by a yet further inquiry into the history of past heresies ; 
but I have already sufficiently tried my reader's patience on this 
subject. Enough too has, perhaps, been said to show w r hat fan- 
tastic gambols the various and ever-teeming spawn of Heresy 
have, at all times, played around the venerable ark of the Church 
in her majestic navigation through the great Deep of Ages ; — 
while in vain attempting to sully or perplex her path, shoal after 
shoal of these monsters have descended into darkness, leaving 
the one, bright, buoyant Refuge of the Faithful to pursue un- 
harmed, to the end of time, her Saving way. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Brief recapitulation. — Secret out, at last. — Love affair. — Walks by the 
river. — " Knowing the Lord." — Cupid and Calvin. 

I had now closed my vain search after Protestantism through 
:ne first ages ; and the whole process and results of my inquiry 
may, in a very few sentences, be recapitulated. As Protestants 
profess to have restored Christianity to its primitive purity, if 
was but natural to expect that among primitive Christians i 
fcfeould find the best Protestants. Accordingly, betaking myself, 
as has been seen, to the Apostolical era of the Church, I con. 



120 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



tinned my search from thence downwards, through those four firs* 
ages which, like the steps of Jacob's ladder nearest heaven, maj 
be said to have caught most directly and freshly upon them the 
effusions of divine light. And what, after all, were the fruits of 
this most anxious and conscientious search ? where, let me ask 
through that whole pure period, did I find one single Protestan' 
— where even the smallest germ of anti-Catholic doctrine 1 Wa« 
it in the Good Works and Weekly Fasting of Barnabas and Her 
mas, or in the Corporal Presence and change of the element* 
maintained by St. Ignatius and St. Justin ? Was it in the rever 
ence paid by the former to the oral Traditions of the Church, o 
the veneration in which his ashes and those of Polycarp wen 
held by the Christians who immediately succeeded them ? Die 
St. Irenseus speak in the spirit of Protestantism when he claimed 
for the See of Rome "superior Headship" over all other Churches, 
or when he pronounced the oblation of the body and blood on thfl 
altar to be the Sacrifice of the New Law 1 — But it is needless 
to go again, however cursorily, through all the stages of that evi- 
dence ; which must have proved, I think, to even the least candid 
reader, that there is not a single one of those doctrines or ob- 
servances, now rejected by the Protestants, as Popish, that was 
not professed and practised, on the joint authority of the Scrip- 
tures and Tradition, by the whole Church of Christ, through the 
four first ages. 

While thus I found Catholicity — or, if you will, Popery — 
among the orthodox of those times, among whom, and among 
whom alone, w r as it that I found the doctrines of Protestantism ? 
Let the shade of Simon Magus, that great father of Calvinism, 
stand forth and answer ; — bring the Capharnaites, with their 
presumptuous questioning as to how our Lord could give us his 
flesh to eat ; — let the Gnostic believers in the marriage and pro- 
geny of the Holy Ghost bring forward their doctrines of Election, 
Perseverance, Immutable Decrees, &c. ; — let the Manichseans 
come and assert the utter depravity of human nature and the 
utter slavery of the human will ; — bid the Docetae, and Marcion- 
:tes ? produce their bodiless and bloodless Eucharist ; — call Nova 
iian, Aerius, Vigilantius and the like, to protest against Tradition, 
Prayers for the Dead, Invocation of Saints, and Reverence of 
Relics ; — let, in short, the entire rabble of heretics and schis- 
sialics, who, during that time, sprung up in successive array 
against the Church, come -and club their respective quotas of 
>srror towards the work, and, I shall answer for it, such a com- 
plete body of Protestant doctrine may be therefrom compiled as 
might have saved the Reformers of Wittenberg and Geneva the 
whole trouble of their mission. 

Such, then, being the view I had taken of this most important 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



121 



matter,— a view adopted, after much deliberation, and with very 
sincere reluctance,— it will naturally be concluded that, however 
imperative might have been my motives for turning Protestant, 
J had now abandoned all thoughts of undergoing so retrogade a 
metamorphosis. Marvellous, however, as it may well appear, 
this was by no means the case. On the contrary, I felt myself 
still drawn on, as by the hand of destiny ; and with a sort of 
fascinated feeling like that of persons standing upon the edge of 
a precipice, so long had I now been gazing into the misty gulf 
of Protestantism, that it was with difficulty, I found, I should be 
able to forbear the leap. 

And this brings me, at last, to the explanation which I have 
so long promised my readers, respecting the motives w T hich, in- 
dependently of those mentioned at the commencement of this 
work, impelled me to smother, as far as lay in my power, all re- 
ligious scruples, and to resolve, — even should I find the features 
of Protestantism not such as would stand the light of day, — to 
embrace her in the dark. Though foreseeing that my change 
of faith would be, in a spiritual sense, infinitely for the worse, I 
yet tried to persuade myself that it was, after all, but fair, that 
having suffered so much in the service of a good religion, I 
should now try to recompense myself by a little of that prosperity 
which I saw attached to the profession of a bad one. In short, 
my voyage was like that of Jason, after a Golden Fleece ; nor 
was there wanting, as will appear from the following narrative, 
a fair Medea to assist me to the acquisition of it. 

The house in which my father resided, on his own small es- 
tate, in the County of , was situated in the neighborhood 

of part of the property of Lord * * *, one of our most consider- 
able absentees, whose agent, a sort of second-hand Lord himself, 
was left to manage all the concerns of those immense posses- 
sions, as though they were entirely his own. About two miles 
from the house where we lived, lay the residence of this agent, 
and a close intimacy had, for a long time, subsisted between the 
iwo families ; — that of the agent consisting but of himself and a 
rather elderly maiden sister, whose fate it was, as will be seen, 
Lo have considerable influence over my destinies, spiritual as well 
as temporal. The lady and her brother were, it need hardly be 
said, Protestants, — the noble owner of the property being of that 
class of orthodox persons who would have thought it unsafe to 
bring any religion in contact with their pounds, shillings, and 
pence, save only Protestantism. 

It was a frequent boast with Miss * * that her family had 
oeen all of this dominant faith since the time of the Reformation ; 
though by some of the older neighbors it was, indeed, hinted, 
that this Protestantism of hers, if hereditarv, had been, for some 

11 



122 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



generations, to their knowledge, in at least a latent state. That 
it had again broken out, however, in Miss * *, in the most decided 
form, was allowed by all ; — her case being of that species called 
the Evangelical, or Vital. 

This spinster had early expressed a warm interest in my sal- 
vation, and having, like all persons of her school, a strong taste 
for proselvtism, would frequently propose to me a walk, along 
the banks of the river, for the charitable purpose of conversing 
with me upon religious subjects, and teaching me, as she ex- 
expressed it, to "know the Lord" as intimately as she did. 
What with phrases, indeed, such as I have just quoted, and the 
exceeding pride she at all times took in talking of her brother's 
noble patron, the word " Lord," in one shape or other, was hardly 
ever out of her mouth, — producing equivoques occasionally, be- 
tween the spiritual and the temporal, which, though diverting, it 
would not be quite reverent to mention. 

Whether, in these efforts for my conversion, the lady had, 
originally, any further view than merely to gratify that love of 
interference, which in Saints is so active, I will not pretend to 
determine. But it was not long before I perceived that feelings 
of another description had a good deal mixed themselves with 
her anxiety for my spiritual welfare ; nor could I help observing 
that, in proportion as I approached the marriageable time of life, 
and as she herself receded from it, a more tender tone of interest 
began to diffuse itself through her manner ; — our walks became, 
through her management, more frequent and prolonged ; and 
even her religious discourses came to be so " rosed over" with 
sentiment, that never before were Cupid and Calvin so undis- 
tinguishable from each other. 

Though it was impossible, as I have already said, to be blind 
to what ail this indicated, there were yet circumstances, setting 
aside the lady's advantage in years, which rendered me incred- 
ulous as to her having the least notion of a matrimonial union 
between us. To become the wife of a Papist, I had frequently 
heard her declare, would be, on her part, such an act of base 
and wilful degeneracy as might well make her Protestant ances 
tors start from their graves with indignation ; — in addition to 
which, having, as was generally believed, no fortune, except what 
her brother, out of his bounty, might be disposed to give her, it 
seemed the most improbable thing in the world that she should 
run the risk of incurring his displeasure by forming an alliance, 
m other respects so injudicious, with one so ill off in worldly 
means as myself. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



123 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Rector of Ballymudragget. — New form of shovel. — Tender scene in the 
shrubbery. — Moment of bewilderment. — Catholic Emancipation Bill car- 
ried. — Correspondence with Miss * *. 

Thus stood my views of the matter, when, during a visit of a 
few days to my family, there occurred a circumstance which re- 
moved all doubts, as to our fair neighbor's object, and opened 
a vista into the future which at once dazzled and perplexed me. 
I have already, in a preceding chapter, made my readers ac- 
quainted with another of my father's neighbors, the rich Rector 
Of Ballymudragget. — So closely, indeed, from my very infancy, 
was the figure of this portly personage connected with all my 
notions concerning matters of religion, that were I now to be 
blessed with visions as beatific as those of St. Teresa herself, 
the corpulent shadow of this Rector would be sure to bustle 
across the light of my dreams. 

His vast importance in our neighborhood, — his eternal tithes, 
of which I had no other notion, as a child, than that they were 
a peculiar sort of delicacy on which Rectors lived, — his awful 
hat, which used to be seen moving, like a meteor, along our 
roads, affrighting the poor and exacting homage from the rich, 
— the select fewness of the auditory to whom he all but solilo- 
quized his Sunday discourses, — every thing, in short, connected 
with him, concurred to give me a strange and confused notion 
of the religion of which he was minister, and to make me look 
up to him as a sort of Grand Lama enshrined at Ballymudragget. 
As I grew older, I came, of course, to understand the matter 
more clearly, and to know that, under the mock-title of Minister 
of the Gospel, the old gentleman was but the fortunate holder 
of a good sinecure of some two thousand pounds per annum, to 
which the father of the present Lord * * had, some twenty 
years back, appointed him. 

At the period of my visit, just alluded to, the Reverend Gentle- 
man was rather dangerously ill, and except as a matter of gossip- 
ing conversation, the circumstance excited but little interest in 
the neighborhood. A change of hat was, indeed, all that most 
persons speculated on, in the event of his death, and it was gen- 
erally acknowledged that, as a variety, some new form of shovel 
would be acceptable. If rumor, however, was to be credited, 
our snug neighbor, the agent, had a far more substantial in- 
terest in the good Rector's demise ; the present Lord having, it 
was said, promised, on succeeding to the title, that the next pre- 
sentation to the living should be at his agent's disposal, 



124 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



How far this rumor was founded, I had never even taken the 
trouble of asking ; but, one memorable morning, when a report, 
it appeared, had got abroad, that the old Rector was so much 
worse as to be given over by his physicians, Miss * * proposed 
to me a walk to the Parsonage House to make inquiries. On 
our arrival at the door, we were admitted, and while the servant 
took up our message, my companion and I sauntered through 
the trellised conservatory which opened from the Rector's well- 
furnished study into the neat lawn and shrubberies by which 
his mansion was surrounded. Having never before seen the 
place by daylight, I happened to ejaculate, as we walked along, 
" What luxury ! what comfort !" when my fair companion, as 
if unable to contain her feelings any longer, turned to me with 
a look of the most languishing tenderness, and, laying her hand 
gently upon my arm, said, " How should you like to be the mas- 
ter of such a residence ?" 

It was impossible to misunderstand her ; — the look, the tone 
of voice, the question itself spoke volumes. I saw the power 
of presentation in her eyes ; felt the soft pressure of induction 
in her hand ; and was already in the prospective dream of my 
fancy, her husband and a Rector ! That chasm which, but a 
few seconds before, had seemed to yawn between Popery and 
the Thirty-nine Articles, was now, by a sudden bound of my 
imagination, cleared without difficulty, and, had not our con- 
versation been providentially interrupted, I was on the point, I 
fear, of committing myself to some engagement of which, both 
as man and as Christian, I should have repented. 

To the significance of the few broken sentences which, in this 
short interval, fell from her, I should in no respect do jusiice by 
merely repeating them. Brief as they were, they conveyed 
summarily to me the important intelligence, that her brother, 
through whose recommendation the next incumbent was to be 
appointed, had placed the benefice at her sole disposal, as a 
marriage portion, with whomsoever she might find ready and 
worthy to share it with her ; — that to. her selection of me, as 
the happy occupant of both these blessings, my unlucky religion 
was the whole and sole obstacle, and that it depended but upon 
myself, should the Rector die to-morrow, to embrace Protestant- 
ism, and her, and Ballymudragget together ! Though dazzled 
at first by this prospect, there needed, I must say, but a moment's 
reflection to restore my mind to the balance it had been on the 
point of losing. Putting the religious part of the question wholly 
out of consideration, I saw instantly what a mark of dishonor 
must for ever attach to my name, if, in the apparently hopeless 
state of the Catholic prospects, at that moment, I should desert 
the fallen faith of my fathers, and for so glaring a bribe. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 125 

From the task of explaining all this to the lady herself, the 
speedy recovery of the old Rector saved me ; but that unlucky 
scene in his shrubbery had given an entirely new character to 
our intercourse. The bewilderment into which she had seen me 
thrown by her few pregnant sentences was interpreted by her in 
the sense most favorable to her own wishes ; and, without ex- 
pressly returning to the subject, there w r as in all our intercourse, 
from that moment, an evident impression, on her part, of a sort 
of tender understanding between us, — an impression which, 
partly from an habitual unwillingness to give pain, and partly, 
perhaps, from a little vanity in this my first conquest, I took no 
pains to remove. 

In about two or three months after this period, the Emanci 
pation Bill was carried ; and of some of the effects which that 
great event produced upon my mind, the reader has been already 
told. During the time I was employed in pursuing my course 
of sacred studies, I found myself unable to afford an opportunity 
of paying a visit to home ; and my intercourse, therefore, with 
my fair converter was, unluckily for me, confined solely to let- 
ters. I call this mode of communication, in my instance, unlucky, 
because the object addressed being out of sight and at a distance, 
my imagination was left free to invest her with all sorts of agree, 
able attributes, without having its pictures brought disturbingly 
to the test of reality, or its spells weakened — perhaps, broken — 
by the idol's voice and presence. The consequence was, that 
my fair correspondent still more and more brightened upon my 
imagination, the longer she continued absent from my sight ; and 
in proportion as I forgot what she really was, I became but the 
more deeply enamored of what I fancied her to be. How far 
the prospect of a rich rectory, with its tithes, great and small, 
might have had a share in producing and nurturing up this dream 
of sentiment, I must leave to others to conjecture. That such 
rectorial realities may have helped to give substance to the 
vision, J will not entirely deny ; but still in imagination, the re- 
sult was not the less tender and sentimental, and could I have 
been well secured against the casualty of ever again seeing, or 
speaking with the lady of my love, there is no saying to what 
extraordinary lengths of time and ardor my passion might have 
persevered. 



11» 



126 



TRAVELS OP AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Miss * *'s knowledge of the Fathers- — Translation for her Album from St 
Basil, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory, and St. Jerome — Tender love-poem 
from St. Basil, 

Though I had not yet mustered up sufficient courage to make 
Miss * * acquainted with the result of my searches after Pro- 
testantism, she knew and, of course, duly appreciated the efforts 
I was making to render myself worthy of her hand. Not that 
this evangelical lady's learning extended so far back as to give 
her the least notion of the existence of any such persons as the 
Fathers ; — her reading having chiefly lain in such New-Light 
paths as the Evangelical Magazine and Morning Watch, where 
authorities such as the Rev. E. Irving, and the reputed Elias, 
Mr. Louis Way,* would be sure to carry the day triumphantly 
against all the St. Justins and St. Ambroses of antiquity. She 
was, however, courteous enough to give me credit for having 
adopted the most effectual mode of Protestantizing myself — and 
only hinted now and then, affectionately, that she thought me a 
long time about it. 

By way of keeping her in good humor, as well with the 
Fathers as with myself I occasionally translated into verse some 
of the many florid passages which occur in these writers, and laid 
them, in double homage, at once, of poetry and piety, at her 
feet. With these half- tender, half-saintly strains, the lady was, 
as may be supposed, inexpressibly delighted. To the task of 
copying them out, her most delicate crow-quills were devoted ; 
and it was the first time, I dare swear, in the annals of gallantry, 
that the names of St. Basil, St. Gregory, and St. Jerome were 
fated to shine forth in the pages of a morocco-covered Album. 

The pathetic remonstrance addressed by St. Basil to a Fallen 
Virgin, (of which Fenelon has said, " on ne peut vien voir de plus 
eloquent,") abounds with passages to which, though in the form 
of prose, such poetry as the following does but inadequate justice. 

ST. BASIL TO A FALLEN VIRGIN. 

Remember now that virgin choirf 
Who lov'd thee, lost one, as thou art, 

* Tne honor which this pious gentleman has now for sometime enjoyed, 
of being looked upon as no less a personage than Elias incog, was attributed 
also, I find, by some sectaiies of the last century, to a devout captain of dra- 
goons, whom they singled out, I know not why, for the same mysterious 
distinction. In a similar manner the Seekers, by whom St, John the Apostle 
is expected back again upon earth, gave out, sometime ago, that he was 
actually arrived, and living retired in the county of Suffolk. See Honoii 
lieggi, de Statu Ecclcsice Britanniccc. 

i In a note on the words "Ad Christi contendit altana," in the Treatise ot 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



127 



Before the world's profane desire, 

Had warm'd thine eye and chill'd thy heart. 

Recal their looks, so brightly calm, 

Around the lighted shrine at even,* 
When, mingling in the vesper psalm, 

Thy spirit seem'd to sigh for heaven. 

Remember, too, the tranquil sleep 

That o'er thy lonely pillow stole, 
While thou hast pray'd that God would keep 

From every harm thy virgin soul. 

Where is it now — that innocent 

And happy time, where is it gone ? 
These light repasts, where young content 

And temperance stood smiling on ; 

The maiden step, the seemly dress, 
In which thou went'st along, so meek ; 

The blush that, at a look, or less, 
Came o'er the paleness of thy cheek ; 

Alas ! alas ! that paleness too,f 

That bloodless purity of brow, 
More touching than the rosiest hue 

On beauty's cheek — where is it now. 

From one of the Homilies of St. Chrysostom who, it is known, 
particularly distinguished himself by his severe strictures on the 
gay dresses of the Constantinopolitan ladies,:): the following spe- 
cimen of his style of rebuke, on such subjects, is "selected. 

St. Ambrose De Mysteriis, there is a description given by the Benedictine 
Editor, of some of the forms usual, in the time of that Father, on the admis- 
sion of the young Neophytes into the sanctuary, to receive the sacrament 
In describing their procession from the baptistery to the altar, bearing each a 
lighted taper in his hand, (as is the manner of the Catholic Church to this 
day,) he makes mention also of the young maidens who had lately been pro- 
fessed, and who likewise formed a part of this innocent train : — " Si qua? 
puellae virginitatem in Paschatio festo essent professa^, ipsa? etiam inter hos 
innocentes greges deducebantur." Those who have been taught to consider 
Nuns as among the creations of modern Popery, will see, from all this, that 
such dedication of young virgins to God, was customary in the high and 
palmy age of the Christian Church. Even the runaway nun whom Luther 
married, might have found some precedent for her escapade in those good 
old times, as we read, in one of St. Jerome's Epistles, (xciii,) of an attempt 
to carry off a nun from a convent. 

* St. Basil represents the virgins as dancing round the altar: — nvwQriri 
ravrojv nai ayyeXiKriq irept rov 6eov fisr' eksivwv %opeia<T. Such sacred dances, in 
imitation of those of the Hebrews, were permitted, on great festivals, among 
the early Christians, and the Bishops and dignified Clergy (as we are told by 
Scaliger) used to join in them. 

f My young friend's translation here falls short, I must say, of the beauty 
ot the original: — S2^porrjf kcu nacru £v%poia$ ^apuarepov £m\aprtov<Ta. 

\ One of the persecutions raised against him was headed, we are told, by 
three widows, who " could not forgive (says Gibbon) a preacher who re- 
proached their affectation of concealing, by the ornaments of dress, their age 
and ugliness." 



12S 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Why come ye to the place of prayer, 
With jewels in your braided hair ? 
And wherefore is the House of God 
By glittering feet profanely trod, 
As if, vain things, ye came to keep 
Some festival, and not to weep ? 
Oh ! prostrate weep before that Lord 

Of earth and heaven, of life and death, 
Who blights the fairest with a word, 

And blasts the mightiest with a breath ! 

Go — 'tis not thus in proud array 
Such sinful souls should dare to pray.* 
Vainly to anger'd Heaven ye raise 
Luxurious hands where diamonds blaze ; 
And she who comes in 'broider'd veil 
To weep her frailty, slUl is frail. 

The same "Homily also furnished me with rather a curious 
passage, showing how just were this Saint's notions of female 
beauty, and how independent of the aid of ornament was its 
natural power, in his eyes. 

"Behold," thou say'st, "my gown is plain, 

My sandals are of texture rude ; 
Is this like one whose heart is vain? 

Like one, who dresses to be woo'd ?" 

Deceive not thus, young maid, thy heart,f 

For far more oft in simple gown 
Doth beauty play the tempter's part, 

Than in brocades of rich renown ; 

And homeliest garb hath oft been found, 
When typed and moulded to the shaped 

To deal such shafts of mischief round 
As wisest men can scarce escape. 

Poetical as was, in general, the prose style of the greater num- 
ber of the Fathers, St. Gregory of Nazianzum was, I believe, 
the only one among those of the four first centuries, who wrote 
actual Poems ; and of these I extracted and translated a con- 
siderable portion for the Album of my fair friend. The follow- 
ing, however,§ in which the Saint Poet somewhat unconscionably 
requires, that both the eyes and lips of his young virgins should 
be motionless, is the only specimen from his works with which 
I shall here trouble the reader. 

* Tt KoajMEis aavrr]v\ ovk eariv ravra Iketevovo-tis tcl c^r^iara ov yap 

Xpvvo(f>opEiv rr.v Saicpvovo-av Set. — Homil. 8, in 1 Ep. ad Tim. 

J M77 auraTa. cavrr]v' eveittiv, bnep £(priv, Sia tovtwv ^£t£ovwj KaWcom^EoOai. 

J UpoatreirXaa-jievcov rco awjiari koi ektetvttg}[IEvcov. No words could express 
more knowingly the perfections of a well-fitted gown. 

§ From his 'Yro0»?/cot UapOsvots, or Precepts to Virgins. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGIOJN. 



129 



Let not those eyes, whose light forbids 
-A li love unhoty, ever learn to stray, 

But safe within thy snowy lids 

Like timid virgins in their chambers, stay,* 
Keeping their brightness to themselves all day. 

Let not those lips by man be won 

To breathe a thought that warms thy guileless breast, 

But, like May-buds, that fear the sun, 
Shut up in rosy silence, ever rest, — 
Silence, that speaks the maiden's sweet thoughts best 

From a letter of St. Jerome, in praise of the young widow, 
Blesilla, — one of those patterns of female holiness, those gems 
of sanctity, who formed what Prudentius calls " the necklace 
of the Church," — the following passage is paraphrased :f 

She sleeps among the pure and blest, 

But here, upon her tomb, I swear, 
That, while a spirit thrills this breast, 

Her worth shall be remember'd there. 

My tongue shall never hope to charm, 

Unless it breathes Blesilla's name ; 
My fancy ne'er shall shine so warm, 

As when it lights Blesilla's fame. 

On her, where'er my pages fly, 

My pages still shall life confer, 
And every wise and brilliant eye 

That studies me shall weep for her. 

For her the widow's tears shall fall, 

In sympathy of wedded love ; 
And her shall holy maidens call 

The brightest of their saints above. 

Throughout all time, the priest, the sage, 

The cloister'd nun, the hermit hoary, 
Shall read, and reading, bless the page 

That wafts Blesilla's name to glory. 

One more versified extract from a Treatise of St. Basil, and 
L shall then have done with Miss * *'s saintly Album. So warm 

* There is a pun here, rather implied than expressed, which the following 
passage from St. Chrysostom will explain : — Kop?7 rrpjaayopeveTai 6 o(f>9a\^os, 
\va u)f LKZii't] VT3 Svio 3\s(f)nptov w? tv rivi KovftovxXeia) aTroKCx'XeiTai, bvTu) xai % 

B-ip9£i/o? Siapeivr]. — Homil. 77, de Pcenitent. " The eye is called Kopn, (a 
young girl,) in order that, as the former is curtained up by two eyelids, as in 
a. bedchamber, even so may the maiden herself remain." 

f The whole passage is so much more eloquent and vigorous in the origi- 
nal, that I must, in justice, give it here: — "Dum spiritus nos regret artus, 
dum vitoe hujus fruimur commeatu, spondeo, promitto, polliceor, illam mea 
reksonabit lingua illi mei dedicabuntur labores, i 1 li sudabit ingenium. Nulla 
erit pagina, q, ia± non Blesillam resonet; quocunque sermonis nostri monu- 
menta pervenerint, ilia cum meis opuscuHs peregrinabitur. Hanc mea 
nrnt • defixam legent virgiaes, viduae, monachi, sacerdotes, et breve vita?, 

Bpatium seterna mcmoria compensabit nunquam in meis moritura 

est lil)ris." 



130 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



a tribute to the beauties and allurements of woman, from a pen 
so grave as that of the eloquent Bishop of Caesarea, may well 
be found startling ; — and the translation, I must say, in point of 
ardor, does but faint justice to the original. In fairness, how 
ever, it should be premised, that the authenticity of the work 
from which this extract is taken has been questioned, and that, 
among others, the Saint's learned biographer, Hermant, doubts 
its genuineness. 

There shines an all-pervading grace, 

A charm, diffused through every part 
Of perfect woman's form and face, 

That steals, like light, into man's heart. 

Her look is to his eyes a beam 

Of loveliness that never sets ; 
Her voice is to his ear a dream 

Of melody it ne'er forgets : 

Alike in motion or repose, 

Awake or slumbering, sure to win, 
Her form, a vase transparent, shows 

The spirit's light enshrined within. 

Nor charming only when she talks,* 

Her very silence speaks and shines ; 
Love gilds her pathway when she walks, 

And lights her couch when she reclines. 

Let her, in short, do what she will, 

'Tis something for which man must woo her; 

So powerful is that magnet still 

Which draws all souls and senses to her. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Difficulties of my present position. — Lord. Farnham's Protestants. — Ballin- 
asloe Christians. — Pious letter from Miss * *. — Suggests that I should go 
to Germany. — Resolution to take her advice. 

The position in which I now found myself was not a little 
embarrassing. By this unlucky correspondence, in which I had 
been, for some months, engaged, and which — being, on my side, 
a mere indulgence of fancy, at the least possible cost of reality 
or feeling, — might have gone on thus, under the fostering in- 
fluence of absence, for ever, I had not only deluded my mature 
friend, Miss * *, into the fond certainty that I was in love with 
ler, but had even, by dint of fine sentences, which, " like chariot- 
wheels, kindled as they ran," brought myself, in some slight de- 
gree, to indulge in the same delusion. While between the lady 

* Kat ov \a\ov<ra yvvri fxovop Kai bpcjcra, aXXa Kat KaOrijievri rwj tcai Pa&ttyvoa, 
Sta rijv tvovcav Kara rov appzv^i avrqs (ftvaiKTjv Svvarsiav, ws' (Ti6npo$, (prjjii, iroppixidsr 
aayvrjrts, rovro irpos iavrrjv jxayyavsvei. — De vera Virginitate. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



131 



and me, too, this ideal approximation was taking place, that un- 
lucky Protestantism which was to form the indispensable basis 
of our union, seemed farther off from me than ever ; and, had a 
vacancy occurred in the Rectory of Bailymudragget, at this mo. 
ment, the unprovided state in which it would have found me, in 
the important article of religion, would have been perplexing in 
the extreme. 

In addition to the repugnance I could not. but feel to the adop- 
tion of a new creed, from the conviction forced upon me, at 
every step of my inquiries upon the subject, that in the Catholic 
Church alone was to be found genuine Christianity, there had 
been also a ridicule, at this time, brought upon all conversions 
to Protestantism, by the utter failure of a late saintly farce, 
called the Second Irish Reformation, to which, in no possible 
circumstances, could I have had the courage to expose myself. 
The wretched absurdity of that last effort of Protestant Ascen- 
dency, — the parade made about a few scores of hungry Papists, 
who consented to become Protestants on the same terms on 
which Mungo consents to tell truth, "What you give me, Massa?" 
— and finally, the unceremonious speed with which all these 
Ballinasloe Christians* relapsed, laughing in their sleeves, into 
Popery and Idolatry, — the whole of this grave farce will long 
be remembered, to the signalization of my Lord Farnham's wis- 
dom, and the no less honor and glory of the Reverend wiseacres 
of ihe British Critic, who sounded the rams' -horns of triumph in 
his pious Lordship's rear. 

To the fear of, by any chance, being mistaken for one of 
Lord Farnham's Protestants, I was myself, perhaps, more pecu- 
liarly alive, from a consciousness, but too well founded, alas ! 
that, between the poor wretches who exchanged their faith for 
" the Friday's bacon," and myself, who was about to barter it 
for the rich rectory of Bailymudragget, the amount of the bribe 
constituted the whole and sole difference. Feeling, however, 
that I was bound, in courtesy, to communicate to my fair cor- 
respondent some little insight into the real state of my mind, on 
the subject, I ventured to intimate to her, in one of my letters, 
that the impression left on my mind by the perusal of the Fathers 
was, I was grieved to say, not quite so favorable to the cause of 
Protestantism as, in her zeal for my speedy conversion, she 

* They who are amused with such foolery, cannot do better than turn to 
the numbers of the British Critic for that period, (towards the latter end of 
1827,) where they may trace the whole ludicrous course of this New-Light 
mummery, from the first triumphant announcements of the advance of " the 
Reformation " through the benighted regions of Ballinasloe, Loughrea, and 
Ahascrah, till, " coming in contact," as these gentlemen express it, " with the 
darkness of the land in Sligo," its evangelical light began to wax fainter and 
fainter, and, at last, in the aptly-named district of Kilmummery, expired! 



132 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



might desire ; and that a yet farther course of time and study 
would be requisite, before those scruples which I entertained, as 
to the adoption of a new faith, could be removed. 

The lady's answer to this was in her accustomed textuary 
style. After declaring pathetically that she had, as I could well 
conceive, " wearied the Lord with her words," (Malachi, ii, 17,) 
in my behalf, and assuring me of her unceasing anxiety, night 
and day, to pluck that " dear firebrand" (as she tenderly and 
scripturally called my soul) out of the fire, she proceeded to 
say that, from the very first, she had felt serious apprehensions 
that in seeking " the word of the Holy One" (Isa. v, 24) among 
the Fathers, I was but trying to " gather grapes of thorns, and 
figs of thistles," (Matt, vii, 16.) The only acquaintance she 
herself had ever formed among the Fathers was at the table, as 
she reminded me, of my own family, where it had been her for- 
tune, on more than one occasion, to meet the Reverends Father 
O'Toole and Father M'Loughlin ; and the less, in her opinion^ 
that was said of such Fathers of the Church, the better. 

After a little more of this display of learning, respecting the 
Fathers, Miss * * continued to say that, were she to speak her 
own desire, on the subject, it w r ould be, that I should, for a time, 
" separate from that filthiness of the heathen" (Ezra, vi, 21) with 
which my family connexions would, as long as I tarried in the 
land, be sure to compass me ; and sorely as it would afmct her, 
even for a brief space, to lose me, yet so anxious was she that 
" the soul of her turtle (meaning me) should not be delivered 
unto the wicked" (Psalm lxxiv, 19) — so strong was her desire 
to " cause mine iniquity to pass from me and clothe me with a 
change of raiment" (Zech. iii, 4,) that, until the arrival of that 
happy moment, when we were to cleave one to another" (Daniel, 
ii, 43,) she counselled earnestly that I should betake myself 
unto some " land of uprightness" (Psalm cxliii, 10) — even the 
land of Luther or of the immortal Calvin,— and there, out of the 
reach of the " Mother of Harlots," (Rev. xvii, 5,) continue to 
" nourish myself up in the words of faith and of good doctrine," 
(1 Tim. iv, 6,) so as to become worthy, at last, of that " fat por- 
tion" (Hab. i, 16) which was in store for me, and which should 
be " rendered double unto me, as unto the prisoners of hope," 
(Zech. x, 12,) — namely, herself and Ballymudragget. 

In a postscript to this piece of scriptural patchwork, the fair 
writer added that, in the event of my going abroad, she meant 
to commission me to procure for her a copy of that edifying 
book, Luther's Table-Talk ;* and would, at the same time, re- 
commend to me, for my own particular edification, a pious for- 

* This " edifying book" of Luther contains the conversations of the jovial 
R.eformer over his cups, as reported by Rebenstok, one of his most attached 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



133 



eign work, called Pastor Fido,* written by one Guarini, and ac- 
counted, as she understood, one of the best possible manuals for 
toe instruction of young Protestant divines in chose duties which, 
vis faithful Pastors, they were to perform towards their flocks. 

Whatever may be thought of this last learned suggestion, the 
project hinted to mo by my fair converter of a visit to the land 
of Luther, — the birthplace of the Reformation, — the boasted 
wellspring of the thousand and one streams of Protestantism, — 
flashed like a ray of newborn light across my fancy. " To 
Germany ! — yes, to Germany will I assuredly go," exclaimed I, 
once more striding Protestantly through my two-pair-stair cham- 
ber, and marvelling that so compendious a mode of attaining my 
object had never before occurred to me. In the excitement of 
the vague hope that now opened upon me, added to the exhila- 
rating prospect of foreign travel and adventure, the whole course 
of my late studies was, at once, lost sight of and forgotten. 
Fathers, Councils, Primitive Church, all receded into the back- 
ground, and already did I begin, in the true pride of a Reformed 
spirit, to persuade myself that every thing which had passed 
during the first fifteen hundred years of Christianity was but an 
idle dream, and that not till the year of our Lord 1530f did the 
Gospel of our Lord come purely and evangelically into operation. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

The Apostolic antiquity of the Catholic doctrines allowed by Protestants 
themselves. — Proofs — from the writings of the Reformers, Luther, Me- 
lancthon, &c. — from later Protestants, Casaubon, Scaliger, &c. — from 
Socinus and Gibbon. 

In the fit of delirium which, at the close of the preceding 
chapter, I have described, I was, in fact, but jumping to a con- 
elusion into which all thinking Protestants who have examined 
fairly into the history of primitive Christianity, and yet are satis- 
fied with their own religion, must deliberately have settled. By 

disciples, and published, after his death, with cruel kindness by his friends. 
Great efforts were, of course, made to discredit the authenticity of this work — 
but without success. The zealous Dutch divine, Voet, allowed its genuine- 
ness, and even the Reformer's partial historian, Seckendorf, could do no 
more than lament the imprudence of the friends who published it. The rib- 
aldry, indeed, with which this book, in its original state, abounded, might well 
awaken, in those who were solicitous about the Reformer's fame, deep regret 
at its publication. 

* Tn this mistake respecting the Pastor Fido the, lady was not singular ; 
for, already had the poet Guarini, from the same misapprehension, been placed 
in the rank of ecclesiastical writers, by Aubert le Mire. — See Querelles Lit- 
ter aires, Tom. 1. 

f The year in wluch the Augsburg Confession of Faith was drawn up by 
Luther and Melancthon. 

12 



134 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



their manual, the Book of Homilies, they are informed that, for 
more than eight hundred years previous to the Reformation, the 
whole of Christendom lay drowned in all the darkness of Popery ; 
and a fair inquiry into the writers of the early Church must have 
convinced them that the same religion which existed during the 
eight hundred years specified in the Homilies had also flourished 
through all the preceding centuries, up to the first birth-hour of 
the Church. They have, therefore, no other alternative left them 
than the conclusion to which, in my delirium, I came, — that, 
until the year of our Lord 1530, the Gospel of our Lord had 
never been truly promulgated ; and that, according^, his Church, 
that only visible Church of Christ on earth, to which God him- 
• self so solemnly declared, " Lo, I am with you alway to the end 
of time," had yet been suffered by him, for a space of more than 
fifteen hundred years, to lie drowned, as the Homily tells us, in 
" abominable idolatry," — the vice " most detested of God and 
most damnable to man !" 

The position, indeed, which it has been my chief aim to es- 
tablish in these pages,— namely, that the doctrines and observ- 
ances taught by the Catholics of the first ages were the same as 
those professed and practised by the Catholics of the present, — 
has long, I find, by all dispassionate inquirers, even among Pro 
testants themselves, been virtually* and, in most instances, ex- 
pressly acknowledged ; and had this important admission been 
somewhat earlier known to me, it might have spared both my 
reader and myself the infliction of some heavy reading. 

It is true, that at the period of the Reformation, and for some 
time after, when it was naturally an object with those who ori- 
ginated such violent changes to invest them, as far as they could, 
-with some semblance of authority, both the ingenuity and the 
effrontery of the innovators were exerted to press the sanction 
of the ancient Fathers into the service of their new enterprise 
But the avowals of some of the most eminent among the Re- 
formers themselves showed how conscious they were of the hoi- 
lowness of their pretensions to such authority. The deep concern 
with which the considerate and conscientious Melancthon viewed 
each successive deviation from the ancient standard of the Faith 
is frequently and with much earnestness expressed in some of 
his letters. Thus, in a letter cited by Hospinian, he says — " It 
is not safe thus to depart from the general opinion of the ancient 
Church ;"* and, in another place, " it is, in my judgment, great 
rashness thus to spread abroad doctrines without consulting the 
Primitive Church. "f 

* " Neque vero tutum est a communi sententiaveteris Ecclcsiae discedere." 
f "Meo quidem judicio magna est temeritas dogmata serere inconsulta 
Ecclesia veteri." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



135 



From Luther's own confessions, it is well known how long 
and anxiously he struggled to get over the testimonies, in favor 
of the Real Presence, which he found both in the text of Scripture 
and in the writings of the Fathers ; and with what exceeding re- 
luctance he, at last, retained a doctrine which it would have been 
so decidedly, as he felt, for the interests of his cause to repudi- 
ate. In a letter to his followers at Strasbourg, he declares the 
pleasure which it would afford him, could they suggest to his 
mind some good grounds for denying the Real Presence, as 
nothing could be of more service to him in his designs against 
the Papacy.* 

So admitted is this struggle of Luther's conscience, upon the 
subject of the Eucharist, that Bayle deduces from it an ingenious 
argument in favor of toleration, on the ground that the most er- 
roneous opinions may, as in this case, be the result of the most 
sincere and anxious search after truth. " Who does not know," 
says Bayle, " that Luther was passionately desirous not to believe 
in the Real Presence, persuading himself that so long as he should 
continue in that belief, he would thereby be deprived of one great 
advantage towards the object he had in view of destroying Popery. 
His wishes, however, though founded upon what he believed to 
be strongly his interest, were unavailing. He was not able, 
though endeavoring with all his might, to discover that figurative 
sense which to us is so visible, in the words of Christ, " This is 
my body."f 

With little less throes of conscience did another Reformer, 
CEcolampadius, succeed in surmounting the testimonies of the 
ancient Fathers, on the same point ; nor was it till he had made 
up his mind to renounce their authority altogether, — " semota 
hominum auctoritate,"^: — that he could bring himself to adopt 
the Sacramentarian doctrine. 

Were we to collect, indeed, the different Catholic doctrines 
of which some one or other of the Reformers themselves ac- 
knowledged the antiquity, we should find almost the whole of 
their own new system of belief surrendered by them in detail. 
Thus the antiquity of the doctrine of a Corporal Presence was 
maintained by Luther against Calvin and Zwingli ;§ and Me- 
lancthon even expressed himself respecting that mystery '* in the 

* Epist. ad Argentin. 

f Supplement du Commentaire Philosophique, (Envres, Tom. 2. 
I Lavater. 

§ This did not, of course, escape the observation of some among their own 
followers. For instance, Dudith (who is said to have ended his own course 
in Socinianism) thus asks of Beza, in one of his letters to him, " On what 
dogma do those who have declared war against the Pope agree among them- 
selves? If you take the trouble to look over all the articles, from the first to 
the last, you will not find one that is not admitted by some, and condemned 
by others." 



136 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



very strongest terms, (says Mosheim's Commentator,) that the 
Roman Catholics use to express the monstrous doctrine of Trau- 
substantiation ; adopting those remakable words of Theophylact, 
{ the bread was not a figure only, but was truly changed into flesh.' " 

The Centuriators of Magdeburgh admit, reluctantly and an- 
grily, the antiquity of the Sacrificial Offering. Prayers for the 
Dead were acknowledged by Calvin to have been an ancient and 
pious usage :* and the Lutherans not only conceded this point 
in the Defence of the Confession of Augsburg, but professed 
their dissent, in the same document, from the opinion of the heretic 
Aerius, who maintained, in the fourth century, that Prayers tor 
the Dead were useless. 

While Calvin rejected this usage, which he yet allowed to be 
of high antiquity, he, on the other hand, confessed, or rather 
boasted, that his system of election and Grace was wholly un- 
known to all the Fathers of the four first centuries ;f and >le- 
lancthon, with all his reverence for the authority of the early 
Church, could yet, — hurried away, like the rest, by a factious 
spirit of Reform, — adopt new-fangled doctrines, such as that of 
Imputed Justice, wholly unknown, as he himself allowed, to the 
ancient Christians.^: 

By Luther, the use of Images and of the sign of the Cross,§ 
as w r ell as Confession and the Sacrament of Absolution were 
retained ; while Melancthon, Bucer, and other high authorities 
of the Reformation, acknowledged the antiquity and importance 
of the Supremacy of the Roman See. The proofs of this latter 
concession are numerous. Thus Melancthon says : — " There 
is no dispute on the superiority of the Pope, and the authority 
of bishops ; the Pope, as well as they, may keep this authority." 
— Again, " The monarchy of the Pope would also contribute 
much to preserve the unity of doctrine among different nations ; 
if other points could be settled, we should soon agree respecting 
the supremacy of the Pope.|| Bucer, too, who was invited to 

* Vetustis ecclesiae scriptoribus pium esse visum suffragan pro Mortuis. 

t Inslit. Lib. 2. c. 2. — By Gomarus and other such followers of Calvin, it 
is even admitted that the doctrines of their master, as explained by them, are 
not to be found in the Gospel. 

I See one of his letters, (Lib. 3. Ep. 126,) in which he acknowledges that 
he could find nothing like this doctrine among the Fathers. 

§ "The Father of the Reformation, Luther, (says De Starck,) wrote, that, 
on getting out of bed in the morning, one ought to sign oneself with the Holy 
Cross." A learned and famous Lutheran, Gerhard, has even so far racked 
his wits in defence of this sign, as to produce the following strained authority 
for its use: — "The patriarch Jacob, laying his hands upon his grandsons, 
Ephraim and Manasseh, crosswise, formed as it were a Cross, and so 
admonished them concerning the cross of Christ." — Loci Theolog. T. 4. de 
Baptism. 

|| Resp. ad Bel. — This opinion of Melancthon is thus referred to by the 
illustrious Grotius, who was liimself a strong advocate for the Primacy of ths 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



137 



England by Cranmer, to assist in forming the Anglican Church, 
writes thus strongly on the same point : — " We confess that, in 
the opinion of the ancient Fathers, the Roman Church-did hold 
the Primacy, having the Chair of Peter, and that her bishops have 
been accounted his successors."* But the most striking testi- 
mony on this point, because wrung from him by the confusion 
he saw around him, is that of the Reformer Capito : — " The 
authority of the clergy (he says, in a letter to Farel) is entirely 

abolished. All is lost, — all is going to ruin God 

now makes me feel what it is to be a Pastor, and what mischief 
we have done to the Church by the rash judgment, the incon- 
siderate vehemence with which we rejected the Pope."f 

At a somewhat later period, we find the learned Protestant, 
Casaubon, lamenting over those deviations from the ancient faith 
into which the violence of the Reformation was, he saw, betray- 
ing its followers. In writing to his friend Uittembogardt, who 
had, in a conference held between them, endeavored to relieve 
his mind from some apprehensions on this head, he says : — 
" Why should I conceal from you that this so great departure 
from the faith of the ancient Church not a little disturbs me ?"J 
— and, in the same letter, after remarking that, on the subject 
of the Sacraments, Luther differed from the ancients, Zuinglius 
from Luther, Calvin from both, and others from Calvin, he adds, 
" If we go on in this way, what will at last be the end of it ?"§ 
By Scaliger, too, another eminent scholar, and a mature convert 
to Protestantism, it is, without reserve, admitted that, on the im- 
portant subject of the Lord's Supper, we should in vain endea- 
vor to prove the Reformed doctrine from the Fathers. j| 

R.oman See, as the only means of preserving unity in the general Church 01 
Christ. "Ideo opat (Grotius) ut ea divulsio quae evenit, et causae divulsionis 
tollantur. Inter eas causas non est Primatus Episcopi Romani, secundem 
Canones, fatente Melancthone, qui eum Primatum etiam necessarium putat 
ad retincndam unitatem." With Grotius, too, may be associated, as another 
authority in favor of the Primacy of Rome, the no less illustrious name of the 
philosopher Leibnitz. — See his Systenia Theologicum. In a yet more recent 
Protestant writer than any here referred to, — the Baron Senkenberg, Pro- 
fessor of Law in the Universities of Gottingen and Giesen, and Aulic Coun- 
sellor, &c, under the Emperor Francis I, — we find the following strong opin- 
ion on the same subject: — "It is right that there should be a system of 
government among Christians, and it is right that there should be a head to 
preside over it ; and none else can be more qualified for this office than the 
Vicar of Jesus Christ, the representative of the Blessed Peter through an un- 
interrupted succession." Method. Jurisprud. 4, delibertate Ecclesia German. 

* Prop, ad Cone. 

f Ep. ad Farel, inter Ep. Calv. 

I Mene quid dissimulem haec tanta diversitas a, fide veteris Ecclesiae non 
parum turbat? 

§ Si sic pergimus, quis tandem erit exitus ? 

|| Non est quod conemur ex Patribus hunc articulum demonstrare dc 
Ctena. — Scaliger ana. •. 



138 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



While these and a number of other such enlightened Protes- 
tants have thus candidly acknowledged, — what, indeed, only the 
party -spirit of sectarianism could deny, — that the weight of an- 
cient authority is all on the side of the Church of Rome, the 
Socinians, who, from being independent of such authority them- 
selves, could the better, of course, afford to be candid on the sub- 
ject, have in general been found to agree in the same important 
admission. In the well-known controversy respecting the Eu- 
charist between Smalcius and Franzius, the Racovian pastor gave 
up freely to his Lutheran antagonist all the Fathers of the fourth 
century, as stanch Transubstantiationists. And Socinus him- 
self declared that, if the Fathers are to be made umpires between 
the disputants, the Church of Rome cannot fail to win an easy 
triumph. 

It is by those, indeed, who are not in communion with either 
of the contending parties, that the question between them has 
the best chance of being disinterestedly decided ; and, on this 
principle, the testimony of Gibbon may be thrown into the same 
scale with that of Socinus, — the infidel, no less than the here- 
siarch, having professed his inability " to withstand the weight 
of historical evidence that, within the first four or five centuries 
of Christianity, most of the leading doctrines of Popery were 
already introduced, in theory and practice."* 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

French Calvinists. — The Fathers held in contempt by the English Calvinists. 
— Policy of the Church of England Divines. — Bishop Jewel. — Dr. Water- 
land. 

Some strenuous efforts were, it is known, made by the French 
Calvinist, Claude, to prove that, on the subject of the Eucharist, 
the Fathers of the first ages were in perfect accordance with 
the doctrine of the Reformed Church. j" Far the greater num- 
ber, however, of Calvinists, both of France and England, held 
the authority of these venerable teachers in the most sovereign 
contempt.^ " Relying," says the Protestant Casaubon, " on the 

* Posthumous Memoirs. 

f The utter failure, notwithstanding his learning and ability, of the French 
controvertist, Claude, — particularly in his unlucky appeal to the Eastern 
Churches against the doctrine of transubstantiation, — left a clear field, on this 
subject, to M. Arnaud and his brother champions. 

| One of the sources of Calvin's contempt for the Fathers is to be found, 
perhaps, in his ignorance of them: — "Calvin (says Longerue) avoit lu S. 
Augustin et S. Thomas ; mais il n'avoit pas lu les autres Peres." In a 
satire against the Calvinists, by Bishop Womack, called "The Examination 
of Tilenus," the propensity of that sect to depreciate the Fathers is thus ridi- 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



139 



authority and reputation of one individual (Calvin) who was truly 
a very great man, though not free from liability to error, these 
persons cannot endure the bare mention of the names of those 
Holy Fathers whose most felicitous services the immortal God 

was pleased formerly to employ : but whom these 

writers wish to represent as half heathens, unskilled in the Scrip- 
tures, silly, foolish, stupid and impious persons. It is on this 
account they attack the errors of the Papists in such a manner 
as very frequently to inflict, through their sides, a mortal wound on 
the ancient Church"* 

The same contempt for the early Fathers, as authorities in 
doctrine, prevailed, at the same period, among the high Calvin- 
istic party in England ; and the following passage from a work 
of the famous Archbishop Bancroft, (his " Survey of the pre- 
tended Holy Discipline") will show the lengths to which this 
feeling of slight towards the Church's Ancients was carried : — " In 
a certain college in Cambridge when it happeneth that, in their 
disputations, the authority either of St. Augustin, or of St. Am- 
brose, or of St. Jerome, or of any other of the ancient Fathers, 
nay, the whole consent of them all together is alleged, — it is 
rejected with very great disdain ; as, * What tell you me of St. 
Augustin, St. Ambrose, or of the rest? I regard them not a 
rush.' " 

While thus the Calvinists of England, in the true spirit of their 
master, made light of and even disdained the authority of the 
fathers, a far different course of policy led the High-Church 
Divines, not only to profess the highest feelings of reverence for 
those writers, but to endeavor to extort, by all means, from their 
pages, some sanction for their own Protestant doctrines. With 
that sort of rash vaporing which was to be expected from the 
craven spirit he had already displayed, Bishop Jewel went so far 
as to challenge publicly, all the Catholics in the world to pro- 
duce a single clear testimony from the writings of the Fathers in 
support of any of those tenets on which the Protestants differed 
from them.f But the only effect of this absurd vaunt was, as 

culed from the lips of one of the Examiners : — The man hath a competent 
measure of your ordinary, unsanctified learning. But you may see he hath 
studied the Ancient Fathers, more than our modern divines, such as Mr. 
Calvin and Mr. Perkins. And, alas! they [the ancient Fathers] threw 
away their enjoyments — and their lives, too, some of them — for they knew 
not what. They understood little or nothing of the Divine Decrees, or the 
power of grace and godliness : this great light was reserved for the honor of 
after-ages." 

* Letter to Daniel Heinsius, 1610. 

1 The p assage of the Paul's Cross sermon, in which this rash challenge is 
enounced, may be considered, in one respect, valuable, inasmuch as it 
acknowledges most fully the authority of that concurrent Rule of Faith, — 
concurrent with, and illustrative of, the written Word of God,— which the 



140 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



the Bishop's biographer, Humphrey, confesses, to give " scope to 
the Papists," and do injury to the cause it was meant to benefit. 

For a long period, however, did this effort, on the part of the 
Church of England divines, to enlist antiquity on the side of their 
schism, continue, with more or less zeal, to be carried on ; and 
upon all occasions do we find them appealing, with the utmost 
reverence, to the Fathers, — though having, at the same time, the 
avowal of the ever-candid Chillingworth before their eyes, that it 
was the opposition which he himself remarked between the doc 
trines of the Fathers and those of Protestantism that formed one 
of his leading motives for embracing the Romish faith ; or, as 
he himself states his reason, " Because the doctrine of the Church 
of Rome is conformable, and the doctrine of Protestants contrary 
to the doctrine of the Fathers, by the confession of Protestants 
themselves. , 3 ' 

It has been thought by some that this professed deference of 
the divines of that period for the authority of writers whose every 
page breathes rebuke to Protestantism, is to be accounted for by 
the evident leaning towards Popery which the reigns of the two 
first Stuarts betrayed; and there is no doubt that this circum- 
stance, combined with the aid derived from the testimony of the 
Fathers, in those contests respecting Church government in which 
they were engaged with the Puritans, had considerable share in 
moving the High-Church divines to this otherwise so anomalous 
a coalition. But there was, also, another cause, of at least equal 
importance, to which this feature in the policy of the Church of 
England is to be assigned. 

I have before remarked that those Fathers who upheld most 
strenuously the doctrine of Transubstantiation, (as well as every 
other doctrine classed under the head of Popish errors,) were also 
those who most distinguished themselves by maintaining the dogma 
of the Trinity in its purest, most amply developed, and " bright, 
consummate" form. To secure the aid of such witnesses, at a 
time when the spirit of Anti-Trinitarianism was abroad, in defence 
of a mystery, which the Reformation itself had spared, but which 
soemed in danger of falling before some of its progeny, was 
thought to be an acquisition well worth some sacrifice of sincerity ; 
and, for the sake of profiting thus by the testimony of the Fathers 
on one of the few doctrines common to both parties, the Protes- 
tant divines either wilfully shut their eyes to the wide diversity, 
on other points, between them, or else endeavored to evade these 

Catholics derive from their old Doctors and Councils, and from the traditions 
and examples of the early days of thdir Church. Thus begins the challenge 
of the Bishop : — " If any man alive were able to prove any of these articles, 
by any one clear or plain clause or sentence, either of the Scriptures or of the 
old Doctors, or of any old General Council, or by any example of the primi- 
tive Church," &c. &c. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



141 



differences by glosses and explanations, of whose utter futility 
and deceptiveness it is impossible that they should not themselves 
have been aware. 

Of this very intelligible course of policy we find a striking 
exemplification in the labors of one of the most eminent of these 
divines, Dr. Waterland. Hence was it, that, in his exceeding 
zeal for the triumph of Trinitarianism, he was induced to uphold, 
with so high a hand, the authority of the Fathers, — denominating 
the Three first centuries " the golden age of the Church," and 
even inclining, for the honor and glory of his idol, Athanasius, 
to extend that laudatorv distinction so far down as the Fourth.* 
Hence, rather than risk the consequences of the impolitic admis- 
sion that, allies so useful to the cause of orthodoxy, on one great 
point of Christianity, were, on every other, no better than unre- 
formed Papists, he thought himself bound to endeavor to prove 
that, on the equally vital doctrine of the Eucharist, the opinions 
held by these ancient teachers were no less in accordance with 
those maintained by the divines of the Established Church. 

The work, in which the learned Doctor has attempted this task, 
1 have already had occasion to refer to, and shall here only add 
that, for vague and forced interpretation, for unavailing struggles 
against the stream of testimony, and the betrayal of conscious 
weakness under an assumed aspect of strength, it is, considering 
the acknowledged talents and erudition of the writer, unexam- 
pled, perhaps, in the whole annals of theological controversy. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Pretended reverence of the English divines for the Fathers unmasked. — Dr. 
Whitby's attack on the Fathers : followed by Middleton. — Early Chris- 
tians proved by Middleton to have been Papists. — Reflections. — Departure 
for Hamburgh. 

It was not possible that such a system of evasion and casuistry 
as I have, in the last chapter, described, should.be carried on 
much longer ; anjj the first great breach made in it was by the 
honest, however mistaken, Dr. Whitby, in his work " concerning 
the interpretation of Scripture after the manner of the Fathers." 
In this Dissertation, which the translator of Mosheim* represents 

* Whiston, on the other hand, whose controversial interest drew him in 
quite an opposite direction, makes the power of performing miracles stop at 
Athanasius, giving as his reason, that "the forgeries of Athanasius, by their 
prevalence in the church, provoked God to withdraw his miraculous powers !" 

f The usual consequences of such bold speculations were, indeed, ex- 
emplified in the case of Whitby himself, who, in a posthumous work entitled 



142 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



as " the forerunner of the many remarkable attempts that were 
afterwards made to deliver the right of private judgment, in mat- 
lers of religion, from the restrain 's of human authority," the evi. 
denee of the Fathers, on points of faith, is set aside with a degree 
of unceremonious freedom, which even the advocate for the 
right of private judgment, just cited, allows to have been unwise 
and unsafe. 

But, rash as it was, this assault by Whitby was but the fore, 
runner of outbreaks still rasher. The same Church which had 
produced a Jewel and a Waterland, was sure, in the natural course 
of reaction, to produce also a Middleton. Impatient of such hollow 
pretensions to the sanction of antiquity, nor much scrupling, in 
his attacks upon what he deemed to be Superstition, how far 
Religion herself might be endangered by the onset, this divine 
brushed away boldly all that film of mock reverence which his 
brethren had been so long weaving round the memory of the 
Fathers, and at once held up these ancient teachers not only as 
Papists, in doctrine, but (his main object being, at all risks, to 
vilify Roman Catholicism*) as Papists of the most superstitious 
and drivelling description. 

In utter defiance, too, of the deductions which might be drawn 
from such a theory, Middleton hesitated not to reverse the ordi- 
nary view of the subject, and, by asserting the first ages of the 
Church to have been the least pure, risked, heedless of all con- 
sequences/]* the startling conclusion, that the fountain of the 

" The Last Thoughts of Dr. Whitby," thus expresses himself respecting the 
Trinity: — "An exact scrutiny into things doth often produce conviction that 
those things which we once judged to be right, were, after a more diligent 
inquiry into the truth, found to be wrong ; and truly I am not ashamed to 
say this is my case. For when I wrote my Commentaries on the New- 
Testament, I went on (too hastily, I own) in the common beaten road of 
other reputed orthodox divines, conceiving that the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, in one complex notion, were one and the same God, by virtue of the 
same individual essence communicated from the Father. This confused 
notion, I am now fully convinced by the arguments I have offered here, and 
in the second part of my reply to Dr. Waterland, to be a thing impossible, 
and full of gross absurdities and contradictions?' 

* This object he by no means scruples to avow. " Whereas Popish Chris- 
tianity, (he says,) which possesses much the largest share of the Christian 
world, would be undone at once, if the authority of the Primitive Fathers and 
primitive miracles should be rejected in common by all Christians." — 
Remarks on Observations, &c. Vol. 2. 

f Some of those consequences are thus significantly shadowed out by one 
of his opponents: — "The author must either renounce his argument or the 
Gospel. Those who believe the Fathers of the second and third centuries to 
be more credulous than those of the fourth, may fancy the Apostles to have 
been the most credulous of them all. If the world was so credulous imme- 
diately after the Apostles, it will not be easy to comprehend how it should 
have been much less so in the Apostles' times. The author's charge, indeed, 
stops with the Fathers, but his arguments do not stop there; for if the 
Fathers can be proved to have been forgers of lies, the consequences may go 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



143 



Christian's faith was most corrupt near its source. In this 
reckless paradox, however, was conveyed an undesigned tribute 
to the antiquity of the Catholic Church ; since identifying, as 
he did, all superstition and error with Popery, it is plain that, in 
pronouncing the first ages of Chrisiianity to have been the least 
pure, he had no other meaning in his mind than that they were 
the most Popish. 

How unreservedly, indeed, Dr. Middleton let out the whole 
of that inconvenient fact, which it had been so long the policy 
of his brother Divines to keep veiled in the background, — 
namely, that Primitive Christianity was neither more nor less 
than Modern Popery, — will appear from some Remarks of his 
upon a Catechism professing to be by a Protestant, and giving 
an account of the chief articles of belief of the early Church : — 
" We may now see (he says) from a clear deduction of facts 
and circumstances, as they are set forth in this piece, how di- 
rectly the authority of the Primitive Fathers tends to lead us into 
the Church of Rome : we see it ascribing a supreme and inde- 
pendent power to the Church, asserting the Popish Sacraments, 
a propitiatory sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, both for the 
living and the dead ; Prayers for the Dead, to procure some re- 
lief and improvement of their intermediate state ; Exorcisms, 
Chrisms, Consecrated Oil, Sign of the Cross, Penances, Confes- 
sions to a Priest, Absolutions, Relics of Saints," &c. &c. 

This rash sally from the sanctuary,* whatever mischiefs it 
may otherwise have occasioned, by giving the signal, as it were, 
from the Church-top, to all sceptics and infidels for a general 
assault on the earliest witnesses of the Christian faith, was, in 
one respect at least, productive of good, by putting to shame all 
that pretended deference to the Fathers which it had been so 
long the policy of the Divines of the Church of England to 
adopt. Their manifest object in this was to produce an impres- 
sion, among all who knew no better, that those ancient teachers 
of Christianity lent a sanction to the Reformed doctrines. By 
the imprudence of Middleton, however, this instrument of delusion 

a great way." A friend and correspondent of Middleton, the Archdeacon ot 
Carlisle, seems to have been fully as little aware, or as reckless, of the obvi- 
ous consequences of depreciating these early teachers, as was Middleton 
himself. "Christianity (says this wise divine) was in its infancy, at most in 
its childhood, when these men wrote, and therefore it is no wonder that they 
spake as children, that they understood as children, that they thought as 
children." In another place, the Archdeacon, under an evident feeling of 
impatience at the testimony which the Fathers bear to the truth of what are 
called Popish doctrines, exclaims, " Let me not be censured though I should 
be so bold as to say, that we should have understood the Scriptures much 
better if we had not had the writings of the Fathers !" 

* " Dr. Middleton (says the Norrisian Professor, Hey,) does not seem to 
fall far short of Mr. Hume on Miracles." 



144 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



was rendered powerless in their hands ;* for, however calumnious 
and false were, on most points, his representations of the Fathers, 
he had, at least, abundantly succeeded in showing that they were, 
in faith and practice, any thing but Protestants; and that, there- 
fore, to refer to them as authorities for Protestant doctrines, was 
a deception which, once well exposed, was not likely to be often, 
or with any success, repeated. 

Accordingly we have seen that, from that period, — with the 
exception now and then of a Daubeny, or a Faber, who still re- 
sort to the old battered armory for weapons, — the Church of 
England Divines have, with a most prudent reserve, left the 
Fathers as auxiliaries, undisturbed on their shelves : and the 
few departures from this safe policyj- into which they have been 
tempted, must serve, more and more, to confirm them in the ad- 
visedness of their rule. The late Bishop Tomline, for instance, 
in calling in the aid of the Fathers against the Calvinists, only 
showed how totally misapplied and perilous was their alliance in 

* In the following passage from one of the Lectures of Dr. Hey, we find 
the motives of both the parties, in these two opposite views of the Fathers, 
pretty fairly stated : — " Those who defend the pretensions of the Fathers do 
it through fear, lest, if they should appear indefensible, the cause of Chris- 
tianity should suffer by the condemnation of its early propagators. Those 
who accuse the Fathers of superstition, weakness, or falsehood, consider 
what indelible disgrace they shall bring upon Popeiy by showing the impu- 
rity of the source from ivhich all its distinguishing doctrines have taken their 
me." With respect to the accusations here mentioned, against the Fathers, 
of " superstition, weakness, &c," they are the same that have for centuries 
been brought forward against the religion which glories in having followed 
them ; and the best answer to all such attacks on the early teachers of Chris- 
tianity, is to be found in those wise and sarcastic words which I have once 
before quoted from Lardner : — " Poor ignorant primitive Christians, I wonder 
how they could find the way to heaven. They lived near the times of Christ 
and his Apostles. They highly valued and diligently read the holy Scriptures, 
and some of them wrote Commentaries upon them ; but yet it seems they kneio 
little or nothing of their religion /...... Truly, we of these times are very 

happy in our orthodoxy." 

f The two very interesting works of Bishop Kaye, relating to St. Justin 
and Tertullian, are hardly to be accounted exceptions to the system of 
policy here noticed, as this accomplished scholar has approached his sub- 
ject far more in the spirit of a Dilettante than a Divine, and treated the 
Fathers very much as he might the classics of a barbarous age, making their 
works subservient to the illustration of the peculiar customs and opinions of 
their times. How coolly his lordship deals with some matters of opinion and 
evidence which, in the days of the chivalry of controversy, would have made 
a thousand folios leap from their shelves, will appear by the following speci- 
men. Referring to the opinions of Tertullian respecting the Eucharist, the 
Bishop says that this Father "speaks of ' feeding on the fatness of the Lord's 
body, that is, on the Eucharist,' and ' of our flesh feeding on the body and 
blood of Christ, in order that our soul may be fattened of God.' These are, 
it must be allowed, (adds the Bishop,) strong expressions." Strong, indeed ' 
though forming, as his lordship ought to know, but one of a countless host of 
such proofs that Tertullian's doctrine of "feeding on the Lord's body," really 
and corporeally, was the universal belief of the early Christian Church. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



145 



such a cause ; — the very same testimonies which he thus brings 
to bear against the tenets of modern Calvinism being no less 
fatally efficient against the doctrines of the first Reformers, as 
well as against the predominant spirit of the Articles of his own 
Church."* 

I have now satisfactorily, I trust, — though far more at length 
than I had, at starting, anticipated, — succeeded in establishing 
the very material position which I had laid down, namely, that 
the antiquity claimed by the Catholics for the doctrines of their 
Church, or, in other words, the identity which they maintain 
exists between their system of belief and that which the first 
teachers of Christianity promulgated, has been long, by Protest- 
ants themselves, reluctantly, but still most effectively admitted. 

On finding thus remarkably corroborated the conclusion to 
which I myself had come, that what is now called Popery was, 
in fact, the whole and sole faith of the primeval Christians, I 
know not whether the prevalent feeling in my mind was that 
of triumph or mortification. In the first place, had these im- 
portant concessions been somewhat earlier known to me, 1 
might have been spared all those pains of parturition which the 
first chapters of this work so unnecessarily cost me ; — my situa- 
tion now being something like that of the famous Cardinal Sfon- 

... 

drati, of whose book on predestination it was said, " que s'il avoit 
commence son ouvrage par la seconde partie, il se seroit epargne 
la peine de composer la premiere." In the second place, I had, 
I confess, flattered myself, as do the self-taught in all lines of 
study, that the results which I had thus lighted upon were of 
my own peculiar and exclusive finding out. The discovery, 
therefore, that so many others had arrived at exactly the same 
point before me, gave to my task a degree of triteness for which 
I was by no means prepared, and not a little dimmed in my 
eyes, the glory of my research and scholarship. 

On a review of the whole, however, the effect of all these in- 
quiries upon my mind was still further to stimulate me to the 
prosecution of the pursuit in which I had engaged ; my strong 
persuasion being that there must, after all, be something more, 
in the nature of the Protestant Church, than I was yet aware 
of, to enable her to hold her ground, even so long, as a constit- 
uent portion of the Christian world, notwithstanding her thus 

* "The Evangelical Clergy (says the Bishop's able opponent, Mr. Scott) 
do not contend that our Articles, Liturgy, &c, are in every tittle exactly 
coincident with the sentiments of Calvin ; but that they contain, in a more 
unexceptionable form, all that they deem essential in his doctrine." Dr. 
Maclaine, too, (the translator of Mosheim,) says of the Ultra-Calvinist pro- 
ceedings of the Synod of Dort, "Its decisions, in point of doctrine, were 
looked upon by many, and not without reason, as agreeable to the tenor ot 
the Book of Articles established by law in the ChurchTof England." 
J 13 



14b* 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



acknowledged defection from most of the doctrines of the early 
Church, as well as of that mark of the great Father of Heresies 
which I have shown to be branded on her brow. " In Germany," 
exclaimed I to myself, " if any where, I shall be sure to find her 
in her first, genuine shape, with all the associations, too, which 
such antiquity as it is in her power to boast, combined with the 
influences of the ' Genius Loci,' are able to shed around her 
birthplace." 

After taking leave, therefore, in an affectionate letter, of my 
fair Calvinist friend, and promising faithfully to attend to her 
commissions respecting Luther's Table-Talk and the Pastor 
Fido, I set out from Dublin on the twentieth of August, and 
staying but a few days*in London, on my way, arrived at Ham 
burgh about the end of the month. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Hamburgh. — Hagedorn. — Klopstock and his Wife Meta. — Miss Anna 
Maria a. Schurman, and her lover Labadie. — Account of them for the 
Tract Society. — Forwarded through the hands of Miss * *. 

From a traveller starting upon a tour so purely theological in 
its object, the reader will hardly be prepared to expect much of 
that variety of observation which, in general, constitutes the 
chief charm of the wayfarer's narrative. With the neighborhood 
of Hamburgh I found some names and recollections associated, 
in which, as a lover of poetry, and of literature in general, I could 
not but feel interested. How far this city has cause to take pride 
for having been the birthplace of Hagedorn, my entire igno- 
rance of that Anacreontic poet's writings forbade me to judge ; 
but of the merits of Klopstock, the various translations of his 
writings had enabled me to form some notion, and I accordingly 
visited the tomb of this famous poet with all due reverence ; — 
though less, I am ashamed to confess, on account of his re- 
nowned Messiah, than for the sake of the memory of his devoted 
and interesting wife, Meta.* 

In the mood of mind, however, into which my late studies had 
thrown me, neither poets, nor the fair idols of poets, had much 
chance of occupying any great portion of my attention ; and the 
only little romance I could get up, illustrative of the neighbor- 

* The wide difference there is between the selfish sensibility of a man of 
genius, and the warm, devoted, unconscious generosity of a natural-hearted 
woman, is most characteristically exemplified in the respective characters of 
Klopstock and his wife, as exhibited in their Memoirs. The grave of this 
poet is at Ottenson, a small village near Hamburgh, where he lies buried in 
the churchyard, beneath a large linden-tree, under which he used to sit 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



147 



hood of Hamburgh, had for its heroine the learned and once 
famed Miss Anna Maria a Schurman, a lady celebrated by the 
pens of Vossius, Beverovicius, and other erudite Dutchmen, but 
to whose fame and name I was now for the first time introduced. 

The history of this fair Savanta, from the time when she first 
undertook (as one of her biographers expresses it) " to be, like 
Luther and Calvin, the architect of her own faith," till she be- 
came the disciple and, it is said, wife of the notorious Labadie, 
would afford, in a small compass, as edifying a picture of the 
effects of the Reformation as could be desired. Her lover Lab- 
adie, who, at last, rose to the " bad eminence" of being at the 
head of a sect of Protestant fanatics, was one of those preachers 
of piety and practisers of profligacy, who knew so well and art 
fully how to avail themselves of the excited fancies of the female 
Reformers of that period ; and one of the precious doctrines 
which he is known to have held was, that " God could and would 
deceive, and that he had sometimes actually done so !" 

A member of the Catholic Church till his fortieth year, Laba 
die saw what a field was opened by the outbreak of the Reforma- , 
tion, as well for the license of private passion as for the freaks 
of private opinion ; and, having first distinguished himself in his 
own church by endeavoring to corrupt a whole convent full of 
nuns, he abandoned the Catholic faith and turned Calvinist min- 
ister. The popularity which, in this new character, he attained,* 
as a preacher, was almost without example ; and the contrast 
known to exist between the spiritual doctrines which he taught, 
and the very anti-spiritual tenor of his private life, was not with- 
out its attraction for many of his fair disciples. Of the manner 
in which he still ventured to instruct his female followers, an 
instance is given by Bayle, in rather an amusing anecdote, 
which only a philosopher like Bayle could well venture to tell ; 
— and, after a career, not unlike that of some of the old Gnostic 
heresiarchs, this worthy off-shoot of the Reformation died at Al- 
tona, in the arms of his last love, the pious and learned Anna 
Maria a Schurman, in the year 1674. 

Out of all this, — difficult as were some of the particulars to 
manage, — I contrived, during my leisure moments at Hamburgh, 
to make out a plausible, and even decent, little religious story, 
which I despatched to Miss * *, as the first fruits of my foreign 
inquiries after Protestantism, begging her to present it to the 

* "It is remarkable enough (says Mosheim's Commentator) that almost 
all the sectaries of an enthusiastical turn were desirous of entering into com- 
munion with Labadie. The Brownists offered him their church at ^NJiddle- 
burgh, when he was suspended by the French synod from his episcopal 
functions. The Quakers sent their two leading members, Robert Barclay 
and George Keith, to Amsterdam, while he resided there, to examine his 
doctrine." — Vol. 5. 



148 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Religious Tract Society, of which I knew her to be one of the 
most distinguished members. 

The account given of her own early life bv Miss Schurman, 
in a work published at Altona, furnished me fortunately with 
some anecdotes, respecting her infant days, which could not be 
otherwise than interesting to the evangelical world. We find 
recorded here, for instance, the first young stirrings of that piety 
which shone forth, in after days, so signally, under the auspices 
of the « John of Jesus," as her lover, Jean Labadie, styled him- 
self; and, among other things, we are told of the eiTect pro- 
duced upon her, when she was a little girl not quite four years 
old, by the first Question and answer in the Heidelburgh Cate- 
chism, which rilled her, she assures us, with " so deep a sense 
of loye for Christ, that not all the years passed, since then, had 
been able to efface the lively recollection of that moment." She 
then informs us* of her early taste for making babies, in wax, 
as well as the singular propensity which she had, through life, 
for eating spiders. 

From this interesting part of her history, I was enabled to 
trace her to the full meridian of her fame, when, mistress of 
twelve languages, and writing fluently in four of them, — besides 
being a proficient in music, painting, sculpture and engraving, — 
she had the Spanheims, the Heinsiuses, the Vossiuses at her 
feet, and returned learned answers to the Epistolic Questions of 
the Dutch Doctor, Beverovicius.f The literary memoirs, indeed, 
of this lady, might be made to include within their range some 
of the names of most celebrity on both sides of that controversy 
to which the doctrines of the famous Synod of Dort gave rise. 
Thus with Rivetus, the bitter opponent of Grotius, she held a 
long correspondence, of which the object was to discuss the often 
agitated question, " whether it was proper to instruct a Christian 
woman in the Belles Lettres ; — and it is not difficult, through 
all the civility of her Calvinist correspondent, to perceive that 
this Champion of " Immutable Decrees," could he have had his 
own will, would not suffer one of the sex to soar an inch above 
the workbag. 

While such homage was paid to her fame by this high-flying 
Calvinist, she boasted also some warm admirers in the Arminian 
line ; of which number was Gasper Barlaeus, the celebrated 
Latin poet, whom the Gomarists ejected from all his employs ir 

* Pectus meum tarn magno gaudio atque intimo amoris Christi sense 
fuiss 1 perfusum, ut omnea subsequentes anni istius moment i vivam memo- 
nan ;elere potuerint nunquam. — EvxXripia, seu melioris partis Electio. 

| Epistol. Q.ua;st. Roterod, 1644. There is also among the "Responsa 
Doctorum," published by the same writer in 1639, an answer by Miss Schur- 
ma >. To the illustrious list of her correspondents, the names of Salmasius 
and Huygens are to be added. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



149 



the Church, for no other reason than that he refused to believe, 
with the Synod of Dort, that God had created the greater por- 
tion of mankind for the sole purpose of damning them. Among 
the works of this Arminian poet, we find some verses to our eru- 
dite heroine, the concluding lines of which may be cited as a 
specimen of the free and rakish style in which learned ladies 
used, at that period, to be addressed by learned gentlemen : — 

Scribimus haec loquimurque tibi 

Sin minus ilia placent, et si magis oscula vester 
Sexus amat, nos ilia dorni debere putabis.* 

The change from this brilliant, bat, as Miss Schurman after- 
wards deemed it, vainglorious period of her life,")" to that stage 
when religion and Labadie took possession of her whole soul, 
opened a field for tract eloquence of which I was not backward, 
as may be supposed, in availing myself ; — that saintly time, 
when instead of bending over the profane pages of a Horace or 
a Virgil, she had no longer eyes or thoughts but for such Evan- 
gelical writings as the "Herald of King Jesus," "the Song- 
Royal of Jesus," and other such lucubrations of her spiritual lover ; 
and when, looking back with shame to the praises which the 
learned world had heaped upon her, she solemnly, and in the 
presence of the Sun, as she tells us, cast away and renounced 
all such objects of her former vanity. J 

* Heroic. — As a Reformed Minister did not think it unbecoming of him to 
write these gay verses, one who is neither a Minister, nor Reformed, may, I 
presume, venture thus to paraphrase them : 

Now, perhaps, having taxed my poetical art, 

To indite you this erudite letter, 
You've enough of the sex, after all, in your heart, 

To like a few kisses much better. 

And in sooth, my dear Anna, if you're pretty as wise, 

I might offer the gifts you prefer, 
But that Barbara tells me, with love in her eyes, 

I must keep all my kisses for her. 

It should be mentioned, for the better understanding of these verses, that 
Barhieus had never seen his fair correspondent, and that Barbara, whom he 
here mentions, was his wife. The final fate of this poor poet was melancholy. 
Whether from the triumph of the Gomarists, or the loss of all his Church 
preferment, his mind became at last so deranged that he fancied himself to 
be made of butter, and lived in constant fear of approaching the fire. 

f There is an edition of her works in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French. 
Lugd. Betav. Elzevir. 1648. 

I "Eoque omnia mea scripta, qua) ejusmodi turpem animi mei Iaxitatem 
vel mundanum et vanum istum genium redolent, hoc loco, coram Sole (ad 
exemplum candidissimi Patrum Augustini) retracto; nec amplius pro meis 
agnosco : simulque omnia aliorum scripta et potissimum Carmina Panegyrica 
que vanae gloriae atque istae impietatis charactere notata sunt, tanquam a med 
conditione ac professione aliena procul a mc removeo ac rejicio." 

13* 



150 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



In this state of pious self-abasement did Miss Schurman pass 
the remainder of her days; — fully recompensed, however, for 
her sacrifice of the Beveroviciuses and Rivetuses, by those in- 
ward illuminations of the spirit and familiar communings with 
God by which she supposed herself to be favored; and having 
received, as has been already mentioned, the last sigh of her 
Apostle, Labadie, at Altona, she departed this life, not long after 
him, in the year 1678. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Blasphemous doctrine of Labadie — held also by Luther, Beza, &c — Re- 
flections. — Choice of University. — Gottingen. — Introduced to Professor 
Scratchenbach. — Commence a course of Lectures on Protestantism. 

Though it was my fate thus, at the very entrance into my 
new field of research, to be encountered by so strong a spe- 
cimen of the effects of German Protestantism, I must beg the 
reader to rest assured that it was by no means my wish to attach 
undue importance upon any such insulated instances of fanaticism 
or absurdity, well knowing that there never existed a system of 
doctrine so pure, as that, among those professing it, some such 
examples of unworthiness might not be found. 

The only point fairly to be considered is, whether there were 
not, deep-laid in the very principles of the Reformation itself, the 
seeds of all such extravagances as we have been just now con- 
sidering ; and whether the profligate and but too successful apos- 
tleship of Labadie, and the fantastic devotion of his disciple, Anna 
Maria, were not as naturally and necessarily the result of that 
unbounded license which was accorded to private judgment at 
the time of the Reformation, as the similar excesses of most of 
the early heretics were the fruits of the same principle equally by 
them asserted and put in practice. 

And here, I must beg especial attention to a fact, which, to 
most readers, will, I have no doubt, appear as startling and al- 
most incredible as it did, when first I happened to light on it, in 
the course of my studies, to myself. The blasphemous doctrine 
held by Labadie, that " God could and would deceive mankind, 
and that he had sometimes actually done so," is one that with 
difficulty we can conceive admissible, for a single instant, into 
any sane mind. But, once admitted, there is no extent of 
demoralization and corruption to which, under the shelter of 
God's own example, it might not be made to lend a sanction. 
What then will be said, by those who now, for the first time, 
learn the fact that such was the impious doctrine of most of the 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



151 



leading Reformers, and that it is in short asserted, in express 
terms, by Luther himself ! 

In order to get rid of some of the difficulties which beset the 
doctrine of Election and ReproDation, and Reconcile those pas- 
sages of God's Word wherein the wicked are invited to repent- 
ance with those predestinating Decrees by which he has already 
fixed and sealed their doom, the first Reformers found it neces- 
sary to adopt the monstrous supposition that, in such addresses 
to the Reprobate, the Almighty is not serious, nor, in thus in- 
viting them to repentance and amendment, really means what 
he says 1 — " He speaks thus," said they, " by his revealed will, 
but, by his secret will, he wills the contrary," — or, as Beza ex- 
pounds it, " God occasionally conceals something which is con- 
trary to that which he manifests in his Word !"* 

But it is by Luther himself that this gross blasphemy has been 
brought forward in its most prominent and most revolting relief. 
In commenting on Gen. xxii, and on the conduct of God, as there 
represented, towards Abraham, (which is one of the instances 
given of this alleged opposition between the revealed and the 
secret will of the Almighty) Luther thus writes : — 

" Such a species of falsehood as this is salutary to us. Happy 
indeed shall we be if we can learn this art from God. He at- 
tempts and proposes the work of another, that he may be able to 
accomplish his own. By our affliction he seeks his own sport 
and our salvation. Thus God said to Abraham, ' Slay thy son,' 
&c. — How ? In tantalizing, pretending and mocking. \ He like- 
wise occasionally feigns, as though he would depart far away 
from us and kill us. Which of us believes that this is all a pre- 
tence 1 Yet with God this is only sport and (were we permitted 
thus to speak) it is a falsehood.^ It is a real death which all of 
us have to suffer. But God does not act seriously, according to 

* Celari interdum a Deo aliquid ei quod in verbo patefacit repugnans. — 
Rcsp. ad Act. Colloq. Mompel. — The Calvinist Piscator, too, equally charges 
God with this rick : " Deum interdum verbo significare velle, quod revera 
non vult, aut nolle quod revera vult." (Disp. centra. Schafm.) " In his word, 
God sometimes intimates that he wills what he really does not will, or that Re 
does not will what he, in reality, does will." 
_ f Deus dixit ad Abrahamum, ' Occide Filium, &c.' — Gluomodo ? Ludendo, 
simulando, ridendo. 

1 Atque apud Deum est lusus, et, si licerit ita dicere, mendasium est. — We 
find a similar view taken of God's conduct respecting Isaac, by a Rationalist, 
or rather Infidel writer, of the 17th century, who founds upon it a theory for 
the solution of such mysterious doctrines as Original Sin, Imputed righteous- 
ness, &c. All these mysteries, he maintains, are but a sort of legaf fictions, 
by which God, who prefers such sinuous and mystic ways to the direct and 
natural modes of proceeding among mankind, chooses to work out his 
designs. — "Noluit Deus opus hoc perficiere directo illo et naturali ordine, 
quo plerseque res geruntur apud homines, red per sinuosos mysteriorura 
anfractus, &c." — Prceadamila, sive Exercitatio. fyc. 



152 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



his own showing or representation. It is dissimulation, and he 
is only trying whether we be willing to lose present things and 
life itself for his account." 

It may be questioned whether, among all the blasphemies that 
have ever been written or spoken, any thing more revoltingly 
blasphemous than this has ever yet fallen from tongue or pen. 

Had I at the moment, indeed, when I was setting out from 
Hamburgh, been shown but the few unhallowed sentences just 
cited, they would have spared me, I think, all the trouble and 
disappointment of my journey ; being sufficient of themselves, to 
have convinced me (though nothing more of this Reformer's doc- 
trines had been known to me,) that, from a mind capable of 
forming such notions of a Divine Being as are there expressed, 
nothing worthy of supplanting a particle of the ancient faith 
could have emanated. I was, at that time, however, but slightly 
versed in the theological part of the history of the Reformation, 
and regarding the doctrine, therefore, of Labadie as his own 
peculiar blasphemy, without any sanction for such impious tri- 
fling from the chief leaders of his sect, I dismissed the circum- 
stance wholly from my thoughts, and, with renewed zeal of 
research, prepared cheerfully and even sanguinely for my pro- 
jected tour. 

After some deliberation with myself as to the particular uni- 
versity, which it might be most advisable for me to select as the 
first scene of my studies, I at last decided for the school memo- 
rable in theological annals, as having produced a Mosheim, a 
Michaelis, an Ammon, an Eichorn, and proceeded direct, without 
any delay in the course of my route, to Gottingen. 

It would have been my wish, — and I had made a promise, to 
that effect, to Miss * *, — to put my mind in a sort of training, 
for the reception of Luther's Gospel, by a pilgrimage to some of 
those places which are now connected immortally with his name. 
The cell at Erfurth, for instance, where, as an humble Augus- 
tinian monk, he, in whom the Vatican was so soon to meet with 
a counter thunderer, used to solace his lonely intervals of devotion 
with the flute ; — the picturesque ruins of the Wartburg, under 
whose roof he lay concealed from his enemies, and to which, (in 
the modesty of his heart, comparing himself to St. John,) he gave 
the appellation of '* his Patmos ;" — these and a few more such 
romantic visits would, I felt, have wound me up to the true Lu- 
theran pitch, and besides have furnished me with materials for 
such a letter to Miss * * as would have delighted that future 
Rectoress of Ballymudragget prodigiously. 

It was while at the Wartburg, by the way, and while occu- 
pied with his famous translation of the New Testament, that 
Luther was frequently, as he thought, visited by the Devil, in the 



m SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



153 



shape of a large blue-bottle fly. His well-known visitor, how- 
ever, did not succeed in giving much interruption to his biblical 
toils ; for Luther, " who (to use the words of an intelligent tra- 
veller) knew Satan in all his disguises, rebuked him manfully, 
and at length, losing all patience, as the concealed devil still 
buzzed round his pen, started up, and exclaiming, JViJlst da dann 
nicht riilug bleiben ! hurled his huge ink-bottle at the Prince of 
Darkness."* 

To have visited all the scenes of such characteristic displays, 
would have been, I was well aware, the most edifying mode of 
preparation I could adopt for the nearer acquaintance 1 was 
about to form with the doctrines of the chief actor in them. As 
it was, however, the only initiatory regimen to which I doomed 
myself, was the swallowing down a cup of that famous beer of 
Eimbeck, which was counted so orthodox a drink among the 
German Reformers, and over flagons of which most of their new 
plan of Christianity was settled. That the great Luther himself 
was no foe to this beverage, f appears from the fact, which is on 
record, that the good citizens of Eimbeck sent him, in token of 
their admiration, a present of some of their best ; and " as he 
could not (says my authority) go to Eimbeck himself, to give the 
words of salvation for the liquor of earthly life, he is said to have 
despatched thither two of his most faithful and thirsty disciples.";}: 

It must not be thought, from the tone of banter in which I 
here speak of the state of my mind, on leaving Hamburgh, that 
the turn of my views, at that period, partook in any degree of 
the same mocking character. We are often apt, in referring to 
scenes or feelings that are past, to invest them with a coloring 
not originally their own, but reflected back upon them from the 
experience which we have since acquired. It is true, with my 
Present knowledge of the life and the doctrines of Luther, I should 

* R-ussell's Germany. 

\ To this beer he no doubt alluded, in his famous sermon at "Wittenburg, 
when, in impressing upon his hearers that it was not by force of hands the 
reform of abuses could be effected, he told them that words had hitherto 
done every tiling for them: — "It was words (said he) that, while I myself 
lay quietly asleep, or was drinking, perhaps, my beer with my dear Melanc- 
thon and Amsdorf, — it was words that were, in the meantime, shaking the 
Papacy as no prince or emperor ever could have done." In this same sermon 
it was that he so far outraged all respect, both for his cause and his followers, 
as to threaten that, if his advice was not followed, he would, without hesita- 
tion, retract his whole course, unsay every thing he had written or taught, 
and leave them to themselves ; adding, in a taunting manner, "This I tell 
you, once for all." — "Non dubitabo funcm reducere, et omnium quae aut 
scripsi aut docui palinodiam canere, et a vohis desciscere: hoc vobis dictum 
esto." Scrmo doc ens abusos non manibus, fyc. 

\ The traveller (Williams) from whom I have taken this extract, after 
stating that, a barrel of this beer was, in the fifteenth century, a present for a 
prince, adds, that if it was at all like the specimens of it which still remain, 
the princes must have had " execrable tastes and strong stomachs." 



154 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



find it nearly as difficult to speak with seriousness of his pre- 
tended Reformation as it would be to discuss gravely the claims 
to apostleship of a Montanus or a Manes. But it was under a 
far different aspect I considered the subject at the time of which 
[ have been speaking. My limited acquaintance with the details 
of that strange jumble of creeds, out of which the multifarious 
mons;er, called Protestantism, arose, left me, to a great extent, 
ignorant of the system of faith I was about to espouse ; while 
the anxiety I felt to discover in it such points alone as might in 
some degree justify my intended apostasy, made me compara- 
tively blind to all that was of an opposite description, and even 
lulled, for the time, my natural sense of the ridiculous into in- 
action. 

On arriving at Gottingen, 1 lost not a moment in availing my 
self of a few letters of introduction, with which the private tutor 
of a young friend of mine, who had passed some months at this 
university, had furnished me. It was through the means of one 
of these letters, I became acquainted with the chief Professor of 
Theology, M. Scratchenbach ; nor was it possible for me to have 
lighted upon an introduction more fortunate for the immediate 
object of my visit. Besides the great and acknowledged emi- 
nence of this gentleman, in the walk of learning where my in- 
quiries now lay, there were also circumstances, at that moment, 
connected with the actual state of religion in Germany, which 
led him to regard with more than ordinary interest, the particular 
object I had at heart in applying to him. Neither to him, in- 
deed, nor to any one else had I made a secret of my intention to 
become a member of the Protestant Church, in case, on examin- 
ing its doctrines, I should find them to be such as I could consci- 
entiously approve. 

In consequence a long-laid train of causes, which I shall at- 
tempt briefly, in the course of these pages, to trace, there had 
been, of late, numerous instances of defection to the Roman 
Catholic faith, from both the Lutheran and the Reformed branches 
of the Protestant Church of Germany. These desertions, which 
seemed to some persons to be but the commencement of a cur- 
rent setting in towards Popery, had a good deal broken that 
spell of indifferentism which had, for some time, hung round the 
theologians of the University. Fearful only of excesses in be- 
lief, the faintest prospect of any return to that faith of which 
their forefathers had taken such pains to strip themselves, even 
to nudity, struck alarm through all their ranks ; nor could the 
example, which it was now expected I was about to present, of 
a conversion in the opposite direction, have offered itself at any 
apter or more propitious moment. 

With the utmost promptitude did my new friend, the Frofes 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



155 



sor, undertake to put me fully in possession not only of the pre- 
sent state and prospects of Protestantism in Germany, but also 
of that purifying process by which, as he said, the whole system 
of Christianity had, in the course of the last half century, been 
lightened of much of its ancient alloy, so as to assume, at last, 
that comparatively pure and rational form, in which it is adopted 
by most enlightened German Protestants at the present day. 

As I was well inclined to be an humble and unreplying hearer, 
my course of instruction took the shape rather of lecture than 
conversation ; and my rule being, to note down, after each of 
our sittings, such portions of the Professor's discourse as had re- 
mained in my memory, I was enabled thus to preserve pretty 
accurately their substance, — allowing, of course, for such casual 
and, I trust, slight errors as, from my previous unaccuaintance 
with the subject, may have stolen into my reports. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

First Lecture of Professor ►Scratchenbach. — Heathen philosophers. — Ration 
alism among the Heretics. — Marcion, Arias, Nestorius, &c, all Rational- 
ists. — The Dark Ages. — Revival of Learning. — Luther. 

It was, as I well recollect, on the eighteenth of September, 
that my course of Lectures under the learned Professor Scratch- 
enbach, commenced. As I was, at the time, rather indisposed, 
(no doubt, in consequence of the Lutheran beer on which I had 
ventured,) the Professor offered, most condescendingly, to lecture 
me at my own lodgings — a small apartment which I had, look- 
ing upon the canal ; where, on the day above mentioned, taking 
his seat gravely opposite me, my instructor thus began : — 

" Between the Priest and the Philosopher, — or, in other words, 
between the assertor of the authority of Faith, and the vindicator 
of the free exercise of Reason, — there must, at all times, and 
under all systems of belief, exist a principle of variance, which 
can only be prevented from coming to an open and violent strug- 
gle, either by the interposition of the strong arm of the State in 
favor of one of the two parties, or by some mutual compromise 
or coalition among themselves. For the first of these modes of 
establishing religious peace, the alliance between Church and 
State has been always found the most efficacious contrivance. 
The plan of conniving at, and compounding with established 
superstitions, was the policy adopted by the sages of Greece and 
Rome ; and the practicability of a coalition between Theology 
and Philosophy is exemplified in the present state of German 
Protestantism. 



156 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



" The exclusion of Reason from all interference in religious 
concerns was as strongly inculcated, it must be confessed, by the 
great philosophers of antiquity as it has ever been, at any period, 
even by Papists themselves. In fact, an implicit and uninquir- 
ing acquiescence in the religious rites handed down from their 
forefathers, was regarded by them as one of the most exemplary 
duties of all good citizens. 4 When religion is in question,' says 
Cicero, i I do not consider what is the doctrine thereon of Zeno, 
Cleanthes, or Chrysippus, but what the Chief Pontiffs Corun- 
canus, Scipio, and Scaevola say of it. . . . From you, who 
are a philosopher, I am not unwilling to receive reasons for my 
faith ; but to our ancestors I trust implicitly, without receiving 
any reason at all.'* 

" So little, indeed, of a Rationalist, in our German sense, was 
Cicero, that, though acknowledging the art of Augury to be a 
fiction and cheat, we find him denouncing, as worthy of the se- 
verest punishments, all who opposed or disturbed the popular 
belief in that rite.f 

" In a state of things where a Cicero could speak thus, or 
still stronger, where an Epicurus went, for decorum's sake, to 
prayers,| neither the Latin nor Greek priests had much to dread 
from philosophers ; and accordingly, in their respective periods, 
the most irrational superstition continued to flourish under the 
very shelter of the Garden and of the Academy. But, though 
so tolerant of their own established and time hallowed absur- 
dities, we may see, in the zeal with which Porphyry, Celsus, and 
Lucian, assailed, each in his own fashion, the Christian faith, 
that, towards what they accounted a new and intrusive supersti- 
tion, these philosophers were by no means so tolerantly disposed, 
— being in this, no doubt, of the opinion of your English divine, 
Warburton, that ' nonsense for nonsense, the old should keep its 
ground, as being already in possession.' 

" Itwas far less, however, of the hostility of Philosophy than 
of her amity and alliance that the Christian Church, at that pe- 

* Cum de religione agitur T. Coruncanum, P. Scipionem, P. Scaevolam 
Pontifices maximos, non Zenonem, xut Cleanthem, aut Chrysippum sequor. 

A te philosopho rationem accipere debeo religionis: majoribus 

autem nostris, etiam nulla ratione reddita, credere. Cic. Lib. 3, de JV* it. Deorum. 
Another heathen philosopher thus speaks, in the same spirit : " When all is 
so uncertain in nature, how much better is it and more venerable to adhere 
to the faith of our ancestors, as to a depository of truth, to profess the religions 
delivered down by tradition, and fear the Gods that our fathers and mothers 
have taught us to fear." — Gluanto venerabilius ac melius antistitem veritatia 
majorum excipere disciplinam, religiones traditas colere, &c. — Caecil. ap. 
Minuc. Fel. 

f Nec vero non omni supplicio digni P. Clodius et L. Junius, qui contra 
auspicia navigaverunt ; parendum enim fuit religioni, nec patrius most repu* 
diandus. — De Div. 

I Vie d' Epicure, by De Rondel. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



15? 



nod, had any reason to complain ; — the efforts made by some of 
the most learned of the Fathers to graft the tenets of Paganism 
upon Christianity, having more than any thing tended to adul- 
terate the simple truths of the latter, and involve whatever there 
was of mysterious in its doctrines in still more hopeless darkness. 

" The only instances, indeed, which occurred in those times, 
of free and fearless investigation into the credibility and historical 
consistency of the documents of Revelation, are to be found, as 
might be expected, among the Gnostic writers ; and more espe- 
cially, — as far as can be judged from the mere abstracts of their 
works that remain, — in the writings of the Marcionites. The 
sifting search made by these heretics through the Old and New 
Testaments, for the purpose of pointing out the numerous con 
traductions between them, affords, perhaps, the first signal exam 
pie in the annals of Christianity, of that sort of reference to 
Reason, as the arbiter of Faith, which formed the groundwork 
both of Protestantism, as introduced at the Reformation, and of 
that more extended system called Rationalism by which it has 
been superseded. How acutely Marcion perceived the utter ir- 
reconcilubleness of the history of the Fall of Man with any of 
those attributes which true piety would accord to the Deity, ap- 
pears from his comment upon that event, that 4 God must be 
either deficient in goodness if he willed, in prescience if he did 
not foresee, or in power if he did not prevent it.' 

" These glimpses of Rationalism, however, mixed up as they 
were with the wild fancies and absurdities from which no sect 
of Gnosticism was free, produced but little enlightening effect, 
even on those from whom they emanated, while upon the self- 
satisfied orthodox of the day, they were, of course, entirely lost. 
Like all other hseresiarchs, Marcion was followed for the absurd 
parts of his system, not for what was sound in it, and the former 
with the usual good fortune of error, prevailed. The Church, 
too, fast entrenched within her frontier of Unity, and having, 
marshalled on her side, most of the learning and talent of Chris- 
jendom, might safely bid defiance even to the assaults of Phi- 
losophy when approaching in the odious shape and name of 
Heresy. 

" Thus kept safe from all scrutiny of reason, during its early 
md probationary period, Christianity, when, at last, adopted as. 
he religion of the Empire, received the additional aid and sanc- 
ion of the secular arm. At the same time, in acquiring this 
\lliance, it could not but lose much of that internal union which 
-*»e pressure of persecution, from without, is sure to impart lo 
proscribed religions. Hence Schism, — so much more dan- 
gerous than Heresy, as deriving from kinship but the readier 
powor to wound, — began then only to show itself to any formL 

14 



158 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 

dable extent, when the Church, with * Kings for her nursing 
fathers and Queens her nursing-mothers,' took her place, mitred 
and enthroned, as the chosen Spouse of the State. 

" Then was it that, within her own bosom, those controversies 
sprung up, which, though relating to the most awful concern- 
ments of another world, were decided by debates and majorities, 
like the most ordinary state-affairs of this, the discussions of a 
riotous Council and the votes of a crowd of factious Bishops, 
being thought sufficient to determine such points as, whether the 
Trinity was to be abolished or retained, whether the Holy Ghost 
was a person or an accident, &c. — Through all these struggles, 
the Church, (owing chiefly, it must be confessed, to the inrlu-ence 
of the Bishops of Rome,) triumphed signally over its adversaries; 
nor did the efforts of the schismatics to simplify and rationalize 
the popular articles of belief, in any one instance, succeed. 

" In vain did Arius attempt to lay the foundations of a pure 
system of Monotheism, by asserting Christ to have been but a crea- 
ture, made, like other creatures, by the one God of all. It was 
decided against him,* by a large majority of Bishops, (many of 
whom, we are told, never asked the meaning of the word ' Con- 
substantial,' till the whole affair was settled,) that the Son was 
not a creature, but a Being consubstantial and coeternal with the 
Father.^ The decision thus adopted, took its station in the code 
of Christian orthodoxy, and a ready answer was always at hand 
for all objections offered to it. For instance, — 4 if the Father 
and Son,' said the Rationalists, < are to be considered thus iden- 
tical, it may be said that one of the Trinity has been crucified, 
— that one of the Trinity died.' ' By no means,' answered the 
orthodox, 1 though the Father and Son are one. essence, in perfect 
identity, yet could the Son die, without the Father also dying!' 

" In vain did Nestorius, — who, to avoid the blasphemy, as he 
deemed it, of calling Mary ' the Mother of God,' held that there 
were two persons in Christ, the divine and the human, — venture 
to assert the very simple and obvious proposition, that ' a child 
of two months old never could be a God.' Against him also the 
usual summary mode of decision was adopted,^: and the union 

* At the famous Council of Nice, assembled by Constantine in the year 325 
f I have here considerably abridged the discourse of the learned Professor, 
who, besides that, in the wantonness of his Rationalism, he chose to speak 
of these ancient Councils in a tone of levity which could not be otherwisa 
than offensive to most readers, branched out also into details of those assem- 
blies, which could as little fail to be found useless and tiresome. The 
authority cited by him for what he here relates of the Bishops, is the Church 
historian, Socrates ; who, it appears, adds that, on coming to an explanation, 
after the Council was over, such a scene of discord ensued among these 
unanimous voters of Consubstantiality, as the historian could compare to 
nothing but a " battle fought in the dark." 
j By a council held at Ephesus, A. D. 431. — Dr. Priestly, whose views of 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION 



159 



of the two natures in one person thus inexplicably explained : 
— 4 As, in God, the Father, Son and Spirit, are three persons and 
but one God, so, in Christ, the Godhead is one person and the 
manhood another person, and yet. these are not two persons, but 
one person !' 

" With equally ill success did Macedonius, another Ration- 
alist, endeavor to relieve the Christian creed of the separate 
divinity of the Holy Spirit, maintaining that the Scriptures 
afforded no sufficient authority for such an opinion. He was 
answered that the want, as far as it exists, of express testimony to 
this doctrine, arose from the unwillingness of the Holy Spirit, 
who dictated the sacred writings, to dwell on the share he him- 
self had taken in the divine operations there recorded.* A 
Council, too, was, in the usual way, convened upon the subject ; 
and, as the failure of all such appeals to reason, on one side, led 
invariably to increased demands upon faith from the other, this 
attack on the personality of the Holy Ghost, but ended, as might 
have been expected, in establishing, among the orthodox, his 
consubstantiality and divinity. A majority of the Bishops pres- 
ent at that disorderly Council,"}" — thirty-six, if I recollect right, 
having voted in the minority, — came to the decision now incor- 
porated in the orthodox creed that 4 the Holy Ghost was the 
Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeded from the Father, and 
who ought to be adored and glorified with the Father and the 
Son, and who spake by the Prophets.' 

" It was before long, however, discovered that the Holy Ghost 
proceeded from the Son, as well as -from the Father, — but with- 
out prejudice (said these enigmatical believers) either to his own 
claim to be considered as Father, or to the Son's right to be con- 
sidered as only Son ; and the fact and manner of this new line 
of procession was thus, at last, laid down ; « The Holy Spirit is 

all these great Trinitarian Councils coincided, of course, with those of our 
Protestant Professor, after describing the proceedings of the Council of 
Ephesus, says, " In this factious manner was the great doctrine of the hypos- 
tatical union of the two natures in Christ (which has ever since been the 
doctrine of what is called the Catholic Church) established." 

* Such is the reason give by Epiphanius for the omission of the Holy Spirit 
in Paul, 1 Cor. 8, 6, "There is but one God, the Father, of whom are all 
things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things." 

f A Council assembled by Theodosius, at Constantinople, in 381. — I 
have here also taken the liberty of suppressing a considerable portion of the 
Professor's discourse. Among his authorities for the " disorderly" character 
of this meeting; is St. Gregory of Nazianzum, in one of whose poems it is 
asserted that the. great object of those assembled at the Council was to pro- 
cure for themselves bishoprics. " They fight," says the Saint, " and run into 
schism, and divide the whole world, for the sake of thrones." St. Gregory 
also adds, that "the Trinity was but a mere pretext for their wrangling, the 
true cause being an incredible spirit of hatred." 

Kat npocpaens Tpias fort* to S'tiTpexes t^floj cnricTov. 



160 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



eternally from the Father and the Son, and he proceeds from 
them both eternally, as from a single principle, and by one single 

procession !' 

" During the ages of darkness and ignorance that followed 
the period of which I have been speaking, the Church was for- 
tunate enough to have the undisturbed possession of the Christian 
world to herself ; — the few pretenders to science who, from time 
to time, usurped the name of philosophers, being almost all of 
the ecclesiastical order, and therefore pledged to devote the 
whole stock of their wretched quibbling knowledge to the sup- 
port of a superstition by which they lived and prospered, and 
of which such science as theirs was, at once, the offspring and 
nurse. Little, therefore, had religion to dread from the light of 
reason, in those times, when even Grammar was thought too pro- 
fane a restraint upon the words of divine wisdom, and to be ignorant 
was accounted an essential qualification of all good Christians.* 

" In the midst, however, of this darkness, there had appeared, 
now and then, some crepusculous gleams, which bespoke the ap- 
proaches, however slow, of a more intellectual era. At last, in 
the fourteenth century, the night of ages began gradually to clear 
away ; and, with the revival of learning, there burst forth a 
' morning of the mind,' a spread of thought and knowledge, in 
whose light, it was easy to foresee, Superstition would not very 
long linger. 

" The important change, indeed, which was soon manifested 
in the tone of religious feeling through Europe, showed suffi- 
ciently how the spirit of Christianity may be altered or modified 
by the more or less enlightened state of the minds that receive 
it. The hostility to the Roman See, expressed openly both by 
Dante and Petrarch, was but a foretaste of what the diffusion 
of a thirst for knowledge was yet to produce. Within the very 
precincts of the Church, the inquiring spirit began disturbingly 
to display itself; and we find, among other instances, a friar of 
the Dominican order, Savonarola, so far anticipating the glorious 
era that was at hand as to venture to couple the word £ Refor- 
mation' with the Church,*!* and to maintain, in opposition to the 
preachers of mystery, the reasonableness of Christianity. 

" Notwithstanding, however, such glimpses of a purer era of 
theology, — -glimpses rewarded, as in Savonarola's case, with 
strangulation and burning, — the anti-papal adventurers of that 
period were, it must be confessed, far more of faroatics than of 
Reformers ; nor was it till the ever-memorable outbreak of Lu- 

* It was a saying of those times, " Gluanto melior Grammaticus, tanto pejor 
Theologus." 

i Savonarola wrote a Ritratto " della Revelazione della Riformazione della 
Chiesa." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



161 



ther himself that, for the first time, in the whole history of creeds, 
it was laid down as a principle, that Religion is to be subjected 
to the jurisdiction of Reason, and private judgment made the 
sole test and guide of Faith. From that moment, the triumph 
of Reason over Superstition was, however distant, secure. The 
very introduction of such a principle into Christian theology at 
once threw open the sanctuary to the searching eyes of philos- 
ophy, and led, by natural and inevitable steps, (which it shall 
be my business, in future lectures, to trace,) to that enlightened 
and philosophical state of religious belief, which you will find 
prevailing among most educated German Protestants of the pres- 
ent day." 

CHAPTER XL. 

Reflections on the Professor's Lecture. — Commence Second Lecture.- 
Luther — His qualifications for the office of Reformer. 

It would be difficult to describe the state of astonishment and, 
at times, utter dismay, into which, — though obliged from a sense 
of good-breeding to put a restraint on my feelings, — I was thrown 
by the whole course and tendency of this most startling dis- 
course ; a discourse uttered, be it remembered, by one who was 
not only a Protestant Professor of Theology, but still more, a 
Minister, as I now for the first time learned, of the Hanoverian 
Church ! 

The natural cast of my disposition was, as I have before 
stated, deeply devotional ; and I had at this time, notwithstanding 
my general love of inquiry on such subjects, formed but little 
acquaintance with the works of any infidel writers ; — the few 
occasions on which I had tasted of the cold springs of Scepticism, 
having rather repelled than allured me to any deeper draught. 

The irreverence with which, I knew, most Protestants, of all 
countries and sects, think themselves privileged to speak of that 
illustrious array of Fathers and Councils which arose, in the early 
time, as fortresses, along the banks of Christianity, during the 
first progress of that " river of God" through the world, suf- 
ficiently accounted to me for the views taken by the Professor 
of the inspired wisdom of those early beacons of the truth. It 
was not till I found him raising doubts, and even more than 
doubts, as to the direct agency of God in the promulgation of 
the Gospel,* and endeavoring to reduce that special mission of a 
Saviour to the level of those everyday 'manifestations of benefi- 

* The particular passage of the Professor's Lecture, here alluded to, occur- 
red in that portion of his discourse which, for reasons already given, I omitted. 
In speaking of the dark ages, he had said, " It will be difficult for those who 
K 14* 



T62 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



cence which all alike proceed, though mediately, from the same 
divine hand, — it was not till startled by his arrival at this advanced 
stage of scepticism, that I was, at last, aware in what direction 
my Protestant guide was leading me, and saw that already we 
were on the high road to the " waste wilderness" of unbelief. 

There was, however, but little time allowed me for rumination 
on what I had heard, before I was again summoned to heai 
more, by the indefatigable Scratchenbach, who, presenting him 
self early in my apartment, on the following morning, and resum 
ing his subject where we had broken off, proceeded as follows : 

"In most respects, Luther may be said to have been eminently 
qualified for the great task of demolition which it fell to his lot 
to accomplish. Intrepid, vain, self-willed, and vehement,— fear- 
less of - all attacks from enemies, and elated easily by the accla- 
mation of friends — with passions ever prompt to suggest what 
was daring, and a perseverance proof against all scruples in ex- 
ecuting it, — the very weaknesses and excesses of his character 
contributed fully as much as its better points to his success. The 
indiscriminate license of personal abuse in which he indulged, 
gave a vigor to his public displays, in the eyes of the vulgar, 
which made all else appear feeble in comparison, and against 
which no man who was, at all, restrained by decorum, could 
hope to contend with any success. In the same manner, had 
his natural temperament, as regarded the other sex, been aught 
but what he himself so coarsely describes it,* there would have 
been one impulse wanting of the many, strong and ungovernable, 
which, in defiance of decency itself, urged him on in his career. 

" No other man, indeed, of the memorable band whom that 
crisis called forth, could have accomplished what may be called 

regard Christianity as a revelation direct from heaven, to explain why this 
revealed knowledge should, at the time of which we are speaking, have shared 
the fate of all mundane and ordinary knowledge, and like philosophy, poetry, 
— like the whole circle, in short, of human sciences, — should have passed 
through an eclipse as opaque and earthly as ever ignorance and superstition 
have combined to cast over mankind. That a light, so immediately from the 
hand of God, should, within a few centuries after its introduction into the 
world, not only fail in preventing the darkness that then fell over every other 
field of knowledge, but should itself become as much obscured by craft and 
credulity as were even the basest of those forms of superstition that had pre- 
ceded it, is a supposition too monstrous, too derogatory to all our notions of 
divine power, to find admission into the belief of any mind not wilfully hood- 
winked. A system of faith, however moral and excellent in itself, which 
follows so naturally the course of human weakness and change ; which, in a 
period of ignorance, takes the dark and gross color of the times, and, in an 
age of increasing civilization, becomes proportionably enlightened, can assu- 
redly lay no claim to those rrmrks of divine workmanship, — that instant and 
constant perfection, — that grand sameness of design and execution, which 
characterizes all that bears the impress of the immediate hand of G od." 

* Ut non est in meis viribus situm ut vir non sim, tam non est mei juris ut 
absque muliere sim. — Colloq. Mensal. — See also his Sermon de Matrimonio. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



163 



the rough work of the Reformation, — the revolutionary part of 
that great change, — with any thing like the same ability, perse- 
verance, or success. Melancthon would have been far too hesi- 
tating and conscientious for the bold, Carlostadt too much of a 
ieveller and fanatic for the timid, while Zwingli would have 
pursued a plan of Reform too philosophical and simplifying for 
almost all. Even the reverence with which Luther clung to 
many of the errors of the old faith, was, however weak, of much 
service, in facilitating his general object ; as the transition from 
old doctrines to new was thus made to appear less violent, and 
while much was held forth for the lovers of novelty to look for- 
ward to, there was also much retained on which the reverers of 
antiquity could look back. 

" Nor would it be right, among the various requisites for such 
a mission which he possessed, to omit adverting to his private 
character, as a convivial companion, which, among the sources 
of his influence, was certainly not the least popular. The re- 
fined, retiring habits of a leader like Melancthon, would have 
presented nothing broad enough to the public gaze ; while of 
Calvin, as an heresiarch, the sour, arbitrary sternness would 
have thrown such an air of rigor round the infant Reformation 
as would not have been likely to attract many votaries to its 
cradle. The social habits, however, of Luther, his jollity, his 
love of music, the anecdotes spread abroad of his two-pint cup,* 
his jokes, his parodies, &c, — all tended at once to divert and in- 
terest the public, and by lowering him to the level of their own 
everyday lives, established a companionship, as it were, between 
him and his most distant partisans. 

" To this very day, indeed, his reputation, as a lover of plea- 
sure and good cheer, — surviving, strange to say, almost all his 
theological tenets, — still continues to give a zest to some of our 
most popular drinking-songs. For instance : — 

' D'rum stosset an, 

Und singet dann, 
"Was Martin Luther spricht : 
Chor. Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang 
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Lebenlang, 
Und Narren sind wir nicht' f 



* The famous goblet which this apostle of Protestantism called his "Cate- 
chistical Cup," and boasted that he could swallow down its contents at a 
single draught. — See the Collcq. MensaL If there were any need of addi- 
tional testimony to the authority of this work, it would be sufficient to say 
that Jortin, in his Life of Erasmus, always refers to it as authentic. Of the 
Reformer's higher order of parodies, the reader will find a specimen in the 
appendix to Bower's Life of Luther: his more ribald displays in this way are 
to be found in the Table-Talk, in Bayle, &c. 

] "Then let us drink and sing what Martin Luther said : — who does not 
love wine, women, and music, remains a fool all his life, and we are not fools," 



164 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



" Such, undeniably, was the assemblage of at once apt and 
powerful qualifications, with which Luther came furnished to that 
work of assault and demolition, which forms usually the first 
stage of all radical Reformations, whether in faith, philosophy, 
or poiitics. We have next to contemplate his character from a 
far more lofty and trying point of view, and having accorded to 
him his full praise, as the assailant of an old system of faith, 
consider how far he is entitled to the same tribute, as the aposile 
and founder of a new one : — and here, in my opinion, all eulogy 
of Luther's character, as a Reformer, must cease. 

" For that great principle which he was first the means of in- 
troducing into theology, namely, the acknowledgment of a right 
m every individual to interpret the Scriptures according to his 
own judgment, it is impossible to express too strongly the grati- 
tude which all lovers of religious liberty owe to him. For the 
service rendered to Religion itself, by making Reason its ground- 
work, those who seek the reasonable in all things, in Faith as well 
as in every thing else, can never be sufficiently grateful to Lu- 
ther and his associates. But here, in the introduction of this 
great pregnant principle, — a principle, bearing within it the germ 
of future consequences to Christianity which its propounders little 
foresaw, — the whole services of Luther to the cause of Truth 
and Rationalism terminate. His own practice, his notions of 
tolerance, his temper of controversy, the whole tendency, in short, 
of his creed and conduct, lay all, as we shall see, in the very 
opposite direction." 



CHAPTER XLI. 

Lecture continued. — Doctrines of Luther. — Consubstantiation. — Justification 
by Faith alone. — Slavery of the Will. — Ubiquity of Christ's body. 

" Of the policy of retaining a few of the minor absurdities of 
Popery,* as a means of smoothing away the abruptness of so 
radical a change, I have already intimated my opinion ; and had 
our Reformer confined himself to this slight compromise with 
prejudice, he might have been justified, thus far, on fair grounds 
of expediency. But he has to answer for a far more gross, as 
well as gratuitous, homage to absurdity. For, not only did he, 
in the free exercise of that reason of which he was so vehement 
an assertor, adopt, to its full extent, the old Popish belief of a 
Real Presence in the Sacrament, but also in professing to explain 

* The Professor alludes to Luther's retention of the rite of Exorcism m 
Baptism, of Private Confession before admission to the Lord's table, of tho 
use of the sign of the Cross, of the decoration of Churches with Images, and 
other such observances of Popery, which were retained in Lutheranisni. 



I>~ SEARCH OF A RELIGIONS'. 



165 



more orthodoxly the modus of that Presence, introduced a new 
and still more monstrous enigma of his own, in the place of that 
mystery which he had found, ready made to his hand ; thus en- 
deavoring, by the substitution of the small word Con, to give a 
new form and life to that venerable nonsense which had so long 
flourished under the auspices of the monosyllable Trans. 

" That he was conscientious in his adoption of the doctrine 
of a Real Presence, the accounts left by him of his struggles upon 
this subject prove.* He was then recent, we know, from the 
study of the early Fathers of the Church, and, accustomed as he 
had been to consider their authority as superseding even that of 
the senses themselves, the strong proofs which he could not but 
find in their writings, that they were all, to a man, believers in 
tlus miracle, were, to his still subjugated mind, sufficient evidence 
of its truth. f Had he luckily remained as ignorant of the Fathers 
as were, to the last, his colleagues, Zwinglq; and Calvin, the world 

* The sincerity of Luther's belief in a real Corporal Presence, is marked 
strongly in his own declaration to Bucer: "Quicquid dico in hac summa 
Eucharistae causa ex corde dico 1 ' — "Whatever I say on this main point of 
the Eucharist, I say from my heart." He also declared that he would much 
rather retain, with the Romanists, only the body and blood, than adopt, with 
the Swiss, the bread and wine, icithout the real body and blood of Christ. 
"Malle cum Romanis tantum corpus et sanguinem retinere, quam cum Hel- 
vetiis panem et vinum sine (physico) corpore et sanguine Christi." We have, 
indeed, from Luther's own pen, (in his "Sermo, quod verba stent,") a most 
able exposition, as well of the truth of the ancient doctrine of a Real Presence 
as of the futility of the objections which his brother Reformers raised to it. 
Maintaining that the words of our Saviour are to be taken simply and lite- 
rally, he points out, as if in anticipation of the fatal mischiefs that have 
flowed from the abuse of Figurative interpretation by the Socinians, the great 
danger there is in admitting this mode of interpreting Scripture, and suffering 
the mysteries of our salvaTion to be explained away by figure. The same 
submission with which we receive the other mysteries of the faith we should 
bring with us, he maintains, to the reception of this, not troubling ourselves 
with arguments either from reason or nature, but confining our thoughts 
solely to Jesus Christ and his word. To the objections raised as to how a 
body can be in so many places at once, — how an entire human body can he 
in so small a compass, — he opposes the equally diflicult questions, how does 
God preserve his unity in a Trinity of persons ? how was he able to clothe his 
son with human flesh ? how did he cause him to be born of a virgin ? The 
very same was the line of argument pursued by the Fathers ; and it is with 
an ill grace that believers in the Trinity can deny the cogency of so kindred 
an appeal. 

■f Where the authority, however, of these holy men clashed with his own 
notions, as in his favorite doctrine of the Slavery of die Human Will, he made 
no scru ple of casting it off! — See his answer to Erasmus, De Serv. Arb. T. 2. 

I When referred to the Fathers for evidence against some of his heretical 
opinions, Zwm£;li confessed that he could not find leisure to consult those 
writers ; and to the famous " Mallet of Heretics," Faber, who pressed him 
hard with such authorities, he answered, " Atqui vel annum totum dispu- 
tando consumere licebit, priusquam vel unicus fidci articulus conciliari possit." 
In such a hurry were these men to alter the whole system of Christianity, 
and so impatient were they of any reference to its earliest, and, therefore, 
purest teachers. 



166 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



might have been perhaps spared this mortifying specimen of the 
uses to which so vigorous a proclaimer of the rights of Reason 
could apply that faculty, when left to its free exercise, himself. 

" The true secret of Luther's version of this mystery seems to 
have been that, failing in all his efforts to disengage himself from 
so strongly attested a doctrine of the primitive Church, he re- 
solved that, though saddled with the mystery, he would have the 
credit, at least, of promulgating a new reading of it, so as to dis- 
tinguish, by some variation, his dogma from that of the Papists, 
and thus keep the spirit of schism between their religions alive. 

" Accordingly, unsanctioned, as he must have well known, by 
the Fathers, who, whenever they venture to speak clearly on the 
subject, always imply that the original substance of the elements 
is exchanged for that of the body of Christ, he had the face to 
intrude upon his Church that hybrid progeny of his own brain, 
half Popish, half Lutheran, to which he gave the name o£ Con- 
substantiation — a doctrine invented, it is plain, not so much to be 
believed as to be wrangled about, and which, having abundantly, 
for a season, served that purpose, has now passed into oblivion, 
leaving the Mystery, which it was intended to supplant, still in 
possession of the field.* 

" However fitted, indeed, by the peculiar character of his in- 
tellect and temperament for the office of sweeping away, without 
mercy, established errors and prejudices, there cannot be a clearer 
proof of Luther's inadequacy to the task of founding an original 
system of his own, than the fact that, of all those points of doc- 
trine which he himself, in his capacity of Reformer, introduced, 
not a single one has survived to this day among those Protestants 
whose Church bears his name. And in this respect, as in most 
others, he but shared the fate of all those earlier heresiarchs 
whose respective systems, from the want of that upholding au- 

* It is a signal tribute to the truth of the Catholic doctrine respecting the 
Eucharist, that the three classes of Reformers who, in dissenting from it, 
differed among themselves, should, in every objection and argument which 
they brought against each other, furnish a weapon against them all, to the 
hands of the Catholics. Thus Luther was accused by Calvin of doing vio- 
lence to the words of our Saviour, who did not say, "My body is in, or u-ith 
this," but "This is my body;" "you must, therefore," said Calvin, " either 
admit, with me, no Real Presence at all, or else admit, with the Papists, the 
mystery of Transubstantiation." On the other hand, Calvin and Zwingli 
were with equal truth accused by the Lutherans of putting a forced construc- 
tion on the words of our Saviour, who did not say, "This i-s the figure, or sign 
of my Body," but " This is my body ;" while Zwingli, in return, rated the 
Lutherans on their imprudence, in allowing that the word 11 is" retains its 
natural signification ; because, if it does, (argued Zwingli,) the followers of 
the Pope are in the right, and the belief that the bread is converted into flesh 
must then follow, as a matter of course. " Fieri nequit quin panis substantia 
in ipsam carnis substantiam convertatur." De Carna. — See also his answer 
to Billicanus. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



thority which the Church of Rome alone has ever been able to 
afford to doctrine, survived but a short time themselves, leaving 
little more than the name of each founder to his followers. 

" The very doctrine, indeed,— that of Justification by Faith 
alone, without Works, — which Luther propounded as the foun- 
dation of his religious Reform, (and in which he but revived, by 
the way, an old, exploded imagination of the Gnostics,) was 
brought into disrepute, even in his own lifetime, by the dangerous 
consequences which his disciples deduced from it ;* and in op- 
posing, as he was sometimes forced to do, its most obvious results, 
he was but passing sentence of condemnation on his own boasted 
principle. Having himself, for instance, gone so far as to assert 
the extravagant paradox, that the works of men, " though they 
might be good in appearance, and even probably good, were still 
mortal sins,'f his favorite, Amsdorfyj: thought himself warranted 
in advancing a step further, and maintaining that ' Good Works 
were even an obstacle to salvation while another of his dis- 
ciples, Agrippa, renounced the obligations of the Law altogether, 
and considered the enjoinment of Good Works as a Jewish, not 
Christian, ordinance. 

" This doctrine, I need hardly remind you, was revived in 
England|| by some fanatics of the seventeenth century, and to 
this day, as I understand, boasts a number of partisans in that 
country ;1T so that, in fact, in the dangerous extravagances of 

* The immediate practical consequences of this doctrine are thus described 
by one of Luther's own disciples, Martin Bucer : — " The greater part of the 
people seem only to have embraced the Gospel, in order to shake off the yoke 
of discipline, and the obligation of fasting, penance, &c, which lay upon them 
in the time of Popery, and to live at their pleasure, enjoying their lust and 
lawless appetite without control. They therefore lend a willing ear to the 
doctrine that we are justified by faith alone, and not by good works, having 
no relish for them." — De Regn. Christ. 

f Prop. Hsidls. An. 1518. 

% Though himself but a priest, Luther took upon him, in the unbridled 
license of his self-will, to make this Amsdorf a bishop. 

§ The question " whether good works were necessary to salvation" be- 
came, after Luther's death, one of those subjects of controversy which were 
agitated so fiercely and intolerantly among his followers. For simply main- 
taining, indeed, the affirmative in this dispute, the Lutheran Horneius was 
denounced as Papist, Majorist, Anabaptist, &c, and severely condemned 
by the three universities of Wittenberg, Jena, and Leipzig. 

|| As a fair specimen of the opinions of these English Antinomians, I need 
but quote the words of their great champion, Dr. Tobias Crisp, who died in 
the year 1642: — "Let me speak freely to you and tell you, that the Lord 
hath no more to lay to the charge of an Elect person, ijet in the height of his 
. iniquity, and in the excess of riot, and committing all the. abominations that can 
be committed, — I say, even then, when an Elect person runs such a course, 
the Lord hath no more to lay to that person's charge than God hath to lay to 
the charge of a believer ; nay, God hath no more to lay to the charge of such 
a person than he hath to lay to the charge of a Saint triumphant in glory /" 

If Most of the English fanatical sects have, at some time or other of their 



168 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Antinomianism and Solifidianism we must now look for the only 
vestiges of that vaunted dogma which formed the groundwork 
of the Saxon Reformer's religious edifice.* 

" I must not omit here, in reference to this doctrine, to notice, 
— as proving how unfit Luther was to be a teacher either of morals 
or religion, — his audacious interpolation of the word * alone' in a 
verse of St. Paul to the Romans (iii, 28) for the purpose of gain- 
ing, by this fraud, some sanction for his own doctrine of Juslifi. 
cation, by making the Apostle assert that i man is justified by 
faith alone.'-\ 

" Another article of his Reformed creed on which Luthei 
prided himself no less ostentatiously, (though this, also, he de- 
rived from that fountain-head of most of his tenets, Gnosticism; 
was the absolute slavery and nullity of the human will ;- — a doc- 
trine, in his eyes, so founded on Christian truth, that he professed 
his readiness to defend it * against all the Churches and all the 
Fathers.' Notwithstanding this vaunt, however, and the auda- 
cious lengths to which he dared to carry his paradox, — even to 
the blasphemy of making the Deity the author of man's sin,J — 

career, taken up this doctrine of Luther. Thus it was a favorite tenet of 
Whitefield, " that we are merely justified by an Act of Faith, without any 
regard to Works, past, present, or to come." The lengths to which the 
Wesleyan Methodists carried the same convenient doctrine, appears from 
the account which Wesley's able disciple, Fletcher, gives of them: — "I have 
heard them," he says, " cry out against the legality of their wicked hearts, 
which they said still suggested that they were to do something for their salva- 
tion." The same writer represents some of these fanatics as holding that 
"even adultery and murder do not hurt the pleasant children, but rather work 
for their good., God sees no sin in believers, whatever sin they may commit. 
My sins might displease God, my person is - always acceptable to him. 
Though I should out-sin Manasses, I should not be less a pleasant child, be- 
cause God always views me in Christ." — Fletcher's Checks to Antinomianism. 

* The sect of Lutherans that seem to have followed up most consistently 
their leader's doctrine, on this head, were the original Hernhutters, or Mora- 
vians, whose founder, Count Zinzendorf, maintained, among his Maxims, 
that " nothing is required to Salvation and to becoming our Saviour's favorite 
soul for ever, but to believe that another has paid for us, has toiled, sweated 
and been racked for us." — Maxims of Count Zinzendorf— a. work, revised 
and corrected by the Count himself. 

f He was detected, by Staphylus, Emser, and others, in still further frauds 
on the text of the New Testament, and for the same party purpose. Thus, 
in the 6th verse of the Epistle of St. Paul to Philemon, he omitted the word 
" work" after the epithet " good," notwithstanding that this word was, as 
these critics assert, in the famous Complutensian edition, as well as in the old 
editions, in Latin, of Robert Stephen. 

| In his work de Servo Jlrbitrio, Luther declares expressly that " God works 
the evil in us as well as the good ; that the perfection of faith is to believe 
that God is just, though by his own will he renders us necessarily worthy of 
damnation, so as to seem to take pleasure in the torments of the miserable." 
We have already shown, in the preceding chapters, how large a portion of 
Protestantism has been borrowed from the monstrous schools of Simon Ma- 
gus and the Gnostics ; and from the same respectable source is derived also 
this doctrine — common alike to Luther and Calvin, — which supposes God to 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



169 



ne was forced, on this point also, to yield to the saner suggestions 
of others ; and consented, in the framing of the Confession of 
Augsburg, to the introduction of an article, in which the Liberty 
of the Human Will is admitted to such an extent as by some 
has been even thought to border closely on Semi-Pelagianism. 

" In this doctrine, respecting the Will, — as in every other, in- 
deed, which he himself originated, — the nominal followers of Lu- 
ther took a course entirely different from that of their master ; 
insomuch that, in the time of Bayle, as we are informed by that 
writer, the Lutherans had been for a long period on the verge of 
Molinism. Bayle adds, too, in a spirit of prophecy, the follow- 
ing remarkable words : — '"If the Lutherans go on in future thus 
departing from the dogmas of their ancestors,* there will come 
a time Avhen they will in vain look for their doctrines in the Con- 
fession of Augsburg ; and they will then perhaps do as the monks 
have done by the rule of their Patriarchs, that is to say, place 
all matters again upon their former footing. '\ 

" It must be acknowledged that the present state of Protes- 
tantism in Germany, combined with those desertions to the Cath- 
olic Church which are daily taking place, confirm but too strongly 
the acuteness of this shrewd philosopher's foresight. 

" Nearly the same destiny as awaited the other doctrines ol 
Luther attended also his strange notion concerning the Ubiquity 
of Christ's body. Taking for granted that, as the divine nature 
of Christ is omnipresent, so must also be that human nature which 
is hypostatically united with it, he drew from hence the monstrous 
conclusion that Christ's body is every where ; attempting thereby 

be the deliberate author of man's sin and ruin. " It was the belief of Simon 
Magus," said Vincent of Lerins, " that God was the cause of all sin and wick- 
edness, as having himself, with his own hands, created man of such a nature as, 
by its own proper movement, and the impulse of a necessary will, is neither 
able nor willing to do any thing but sin." — Comm. c, 34. Compare with tins 
opinion the foregoing of Luther and the following of Calvin : — " Though 
Adam has destroyed himself and his posterhy, yet wemust attribute the corrup- 
tion and the guilt to the secret judgment of God. (Calvin. Respons. ad Column." 
Nebul. ad Art. 1.) Take also another specimen from a Calvinist of the seven- 
teenth century, Szydlovius : " 1 myself acknowledge that, according to the 
common custom of thinking, it seems too crude to say, 'God can command 
perjury, blasphemy, lies, &c.,' — and can also command that 'he shall not 
himself be worshipped, loved, honored, &c.' — Yet all this is most true in itself.-'' 
— Vindicice Quccst. aliquot, &c. One of the Dort divines, Maccovius, (Pro- 
fessor of Theology at Franeker) maintained, in still more express terms, thar 
" God does by no means will the salvation of all men, that he does will sin, 
and that he destines men to sin, as sin." 

* Not only did they desert their Founder's doctrine on this point, but also 
carried with them into their later extreme of opinion the same spirit of intole- 
rance which they had manifested in the former. " Since then," says Gilbert, 
" the Lutherans have gone into the Semi-Pelagian opinion so entirely and f.i 
eagerly, that they will neither tolerate nor hold communion with any of the 
other persuasions." — Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles. 

\ Nouvelles Lettres Critiaues sur VHistoire du Calvinisme. 

15 



170 



* TRAVELS OF AN ttflSH GENTLEMAN 



to account for its real presence in the Eucharist, in answer to 
Zwingli, who contended that not even God himself could cause 
the body of Christ to be in more than one place at a time. 

" But from this wild doctrine, also, the Reformer found him- 
self dislodged by those consequences which the inquiring spirit 
he had himself awakened deduced from it. ' If the body of 
Christ is every where/ said Brentius, ' it is, then, of course, pres. 
cnt in a glass of beer, in a sack of corn, in the rope with which 
the criminal is hanged !' Whether we look to the doctrine itself 
or to the consequences drawn from it, we must own that the mas- 
ter and his disciples were well worthy of each other. 

" Such, briefly, is the history of those misbegotten and short- 
lived dogmas which this Reformer had the audacity to present to 
the world as the legitimate offspring of Religion by her new con- 
sort, Reason ; — so little had his mind of that power, which only 
great minds possess, of setting the seal of durability on its con- 
ceptions, and striking out truths that will last ; — though gifted 
amply with the coarse vigor that can assail and demolish, so ut- 
terly wanting was he in that prospective spirit of Reform, which 
alters but to improve, and remoulds but to regenerate ; which can 
look beyond the mere dazzle of the moment's change, and while 
it clears away the clouds of the past, can also send a steady light 
into the future ! 

" Hence was it, as I have already remarked, that of all those 
doctrines which belonged peculiarly to himself — all, in short, of 
his system, that was not Popery at second hand — the greater 
portion found its Euthanasia in his own lifetime, while of the 
remainder, all that at present survives is either the mere shadow, 
as in the Church of England Articles and Homilies, or the mere 
abuse, as in the tenets of the Antinomians and Solifidians." 



CHAPTER XLII. 

Lecture continued. — Doctrines of Calvin and Zwingli compared with those of 
Luther. — Luther's intolerance — how far entitled to be called a Rationalist. 
— Summary of his character as a Reformer. 

" Tried by the test which I have applied to Luther,— the 
durability of their respective systems, — both Zwingli and Calvin 
must stand, as Reformers, very far above their Chief ; most of 
the doctrines of the father of Calvinism being still held by his 
followers, in nearly the same form in which they were promul- 
gated and consistently enforced by himself ; while the rational 
view taken by Zwingli of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, — ■ 
as being a mere commemoration of the death of Christ, under 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



171 



the symbols of bread and wine, — has become the standard belief 
of most Protestant Churches.* Even the simple and unmyste- 
rious form to which Zwingli reduced the rite of Baptism, divesting 
it of all that miraculous efficacy which superstition had attributed 
to it, has not only been adopted into the creed of the Socinians, 
Unitarians, &c, but, with the same good fortune that attended 
his philosophic view of the Eucharist, has received the sanction 
of some of the most distinguished among your English divines. f 
So different has been the fate of the doctrines of Zwingli, and 
even of Calvin, from that which has justly befallen the crude, 
ill-considered, and abortive dogmas of Luther. 

" While, on his own part, too, this clumsy and precipitate re- 
former contributed so little, in the way either of strength or or- 
nament, towards the structure of the new faith, his intolerance 
led him to oppose violently every effort in the work of improve- 
ment by others ; and it was soon seen that this loud champion 
of the right of private judgment would, if he had his own will, 
restrict the exercise of that right solely to himself. J His coarse 

* Zwingli's views on the subject of the Sacrament, says Bower, " have 
been adopted not only by the British Churches, but by many on the Con- 
tinent." — Life of Luther, Appendix. 

f Though the Zwinglian, or, as it has an equal right to be called, Socinian 
view of the Sacrament, had found its way into the English Church long 
before the time of Hoadly and Balguy, it was by these two divines that so 
bold and heterodox an innovation upon the doctrines of the Church of Eng- 
land, as declared in her Catechism and Articles, was first openly promulgated. 
"The rite of Baptism," says Dr. Balguy, "is no more than a representation 
of our entrance into the Church of Christ." — (Charge, on the Sacraments.) 
He explains this further by saying, that "the sign of a Sacrament ia declara- 
tory only, not efficient ;" thus doing away that effectual and invisibly working 
grace, which, according to the Articles and the Catechism, is given by means 
of the Sacraments. In the same Socinian spirit, this Protestant divine tells 
us that " the benefits of the Lord's Supper are not present, but future. The 
Sacrament is no more than a sign or pledge to assure us thereof." Equally 
devoid of all efficacy and mystery was the Lord's Supper in the eyes of Bishop 
Hoadly, who agreed with Zwingli and Socinus, in considering it as nothing 
more than a mere commemorative rite: — or, as his able Protestant opponent, 
the Rev. W. Law, not unfairly describes his doctrine : — "Thus has this au- 
thor stripped the Institution of every mystery of our salvation, which the 
words of Christ show to be in it, and which every Christian that has any true 
faith, though but as a grain of mustard-seed, is sure of finding in it." 

J The author of the History of Leo the Tenth, notices with just repro- 
bation "the severity with which Luther treated those who unfortunately 
happened to believe too much on the one hand, or too little on the other, and 
could not walk steadily on the hair-breadth line which he had presented." 
The same writer remarks, — "Whilst Luther was engaged in his opposition 
to the Church of Rome, he asserted the right of private judgment with the 
confidence and courage of a martyr. But no sooner had he freed his fol- 
lowers from the chains of Papal domination, than he forged others in many 
respects equally intolerable, and it was the employment of his latter years 
to counteract the beneficial effects produced by his former labors." This 
part of Luther's character, indeed, has long been given up by all candid 
Protestants. The Rev. Dr. Sturges, in Ms " Reflections on Popery," allows 



172 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



and bitter enmity to Carlostadt and Zwingli, for no other reason 
than that they followed their own views of doctrine," not his. 
showed how widely different was his theory of toleration from 
his practice. 4 They are,' said he, speaking of the Zwinglians. 
4 men damned themselves and drawing others into hell ; nor can 
the Churches have any further communion with them, or allow 
of their blasphemies.'* In another place, too, he says of these 
brother reformers of his : — c Satan reigns so among them, that 
it is no longer in their power to speak any thing but lies.'"j* 

44 With an assumption, too, of infallibility, preposterous from 
such a quarter, he denounced the most trifling deviation, either 
on the one side or the other of that precise line of opinion which 
he had thought proper to dictate, as a transgression, not only 
against himself, but against God. The defeat of the Zwinglians, 
at Cappel, as well as the death of their able Pastor, he pronounced 
a judgment on them all for differing from his version of the 
Eucharist. In the same bigoted spirit was it that he refused to 
comprehend in the Confederacy of Smalcald, either the Zwin- 
glians or those German states and cities which had adopted the 
opinions and confessions of Bucer. 

"'The same impatience, indeed, of all control, which he evinced 
so usefully throughout his struggle with the Pope, still continued 
to render him impracticable in the hands of his brother Reform- 
ers ; and this self-willed and selfish principle he allowed to in- 
fluence him in the most important concerns. 4 1 abolished,' said 
he, 4 the elevation of the Host, to brave the Pope, and I had re- 
tained it so long to spite Carlostadt. 'J In a similar strain of 
dogged defiance, combined, too, with the most unprincipled in- 
difference as to the error or truth of the hasty notions he took 
up, we find him declaring that, 4 if a Council were to order the 
Communion to be taken in both kinds, he and his would only 
take it in one, or none ; and would, moreover, curse all those 
who should, in conformity with this decree of the Council, com- 
municate in both kinds.'§ 

44 How completely he held in subjection the wise, but too gen- 
tle Melancthon, — even to the endurance from him of blows, as 
Melancthon himself confesses, || — would be sufficiently apparent, 

that Luther was, 44 in his manners and writings, coarse, presuming, and im- 
petuous ;" and a far higher authority, Bishop Warburton, says, in speaking 
of Erasmus, that "the other Reformers, such as Luther, Calvin, and their fol- 
lowers, understood so little in what true Christianity consisted, that they 
carried with them into the Reformed Churches that 'very spirit of persecu- 
tion which had driven them from the Church of Rome.' " — Notes on Pope's 
Essay on Criticism. 

* Jlp. Hospin. f Epist. ad Jac. Prep. Bremens. ap. Hospin. 

I Confess. Parv. § Form. Miss. 

|1 Ab ipso colaphos acceperim. — Ep. ad Theodorum. The wretched life 
winch his tyrant led him, is described toucningly in some of rVlelancthon's 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 173 

did there exist no other testimony of the fact, from the promi- 
nent station and authority which, immediately on Luther's death, 
his former slave began to assume in all the councils of the party. 
But it was then too late for the mild spirit of Melancthon to have 
any influence. The intolerant character of the Founder had 
sunk deeply and indelibly into his Church ; and, as he himself 
had been accustomed jocularly to boast that he was a second 
Pope,* so the followers of his creed but exchanged the infallibility 
of Bulls and Councils for the upstart pretensions to the same au- 
thority assumed.by Confessions and other Symbolic Formularies. 

" Hence, though Lutheranism has now, — thanks to the en- 
lightening progress of Reason, — become, like most other such 
distinctions between Protestants, a mere name, its course, for 
nearly two centuries after the death of its founder, was marked 
by a bitterness of polemic spirit, a cold pedantry of doctrine com- 
bined with a hot-headed intolerance in practice,f such as never 
before conspired to render religion unamiable, since human sys- 
tems of faith were first known in this world. 

" In what respects besides his one, great, and signal achieve- 
ment in substituting the tribunal of Private Judgment for the 
authority of the Church, this Reformer has been deemed, by 
Wegschneider, to deserve the title of Rationalist, I am wholly at 
a loss to discover.^ Besides the instances which I have brought 
forward, from his doctrines, displaying an extent of irrationalism 
which goes beyond even the privilege of such sectarian absurdi- 
ties, his favorite thesis, on which even the Doctors of the Sor- 
bonne were opposed to him, that 4 there are things false in Phi- 
losophy which are true in Theology,' may be said to contain 
within itself the very essence of the Anti-rational principle ; and 
accordingly, on the first rise of the party called Rationaux, we 
find them frequently contesting this thesis with the orthodox. § 

confidential letters. "I am in a state of servitude," he says to his friend 
Camerarius, " as if I were in the Cave of the Cyclops; and often do I think 
of making my escape." 

* When Luther, in going to visit the Pope's Nuncio, in 1535, stepped into 
the carriage with Pomeranus, who was to introduce him, he said, laughingly, 
" Here sit the Pope of Germany and Cardinal Pomeranus." 

| This intolerance of the Lutherans has been noticed even to a late period 
by travellers in Germany. Thus the Baron de Reisbeck says, in speaking 
of Frankfort, "La seule chose qui nuiseala liberte* de penser, a l'humani- 
sation des moeurs, et aux progres du commerce et de l'industrie, c'est l'inqui- 
sition qu'exerce le Clcrge Luthe>ien, qui forme ici la principale 6glise." 

| "Wegschneider possibly meant no more than what many other German 
Rationalists (as Mr. Pusey informs us) assert — viz. that " their scheme is the 
perfection of that Reformation xohich Luther left incomplete." 

§ One of the earliest of the Rationalists, Meyer, in his work, " Philosophia 
Scripturae lnterpres," (which Semler republished) contends strongly against 
the notion of Luther that there are many things "quae sunt vera theologies 
uc philosophice falsa." 

15* 



174 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



"It is true that Luther first set the example, — thougo certainly 
not with any clear foresight of the consequences, — of that un- 
ceremonious method of dealing with the received Canon of Scrip- 
ture which has in later times been adopted, and with such search- 
ing effect, by far more able inquirers into the authenticity of the 
sacred writings. In rejecting the Epistle of St. James, as spu- 
rious, and calling it a ' chaffy' production, £ unworthy of an Apos- 
tle,'* Luther was actuated, we know, by little else than a feeling 
of pettish impatience at the authority which this Epistle opposes 
to his own doctrine of Justification, — as also at the sanction, 
perhaps, which it affords to the Catholic Sacrament of Extreme 
Unction. In the same manner, his unseemly attacks upon Ec- 
clesiastes and other Books of Scripture, are to be accounted only 
among those post-prandial effusions of his humor, for which, in 
his soberer moods of theology, he was hardly to be held re^ 
sponsible. 

" Though the example, therefore, from such authority, of a 
want of reverence for any part of the received Canon, may have 
tended to weaken, in some minds, that homage for the whole 
which a long reign of Superstition had impressed, it would be 
paying much too high a compliment to the headlong theology of 
Luther, to trace to his factious attacks on the Epistle of St. James 
and Ecclesiastes even the germ of that bold school of scriptural 
criticism, for which we are so deeply indebted to the Rational- 
ists ; — a school, which, in our own times, has produced a Gese- 
nius to call in question the authenticity of Isaiah, and a Bret- 
schneider to impugn the genuineness of the Gospel and Epistles 
of St. John. 

" For the rest, taking into view the predominant features of 
Luther's character, — his intolerance, his ungovernable temper,* 

* With a similar freedom, Luther expressed his opinion of the relative 
value of the other books of Scripture. The Gospel of John he called the 
Chief Gospel, and preferred it far to the other three. So also the Epistles 
of Peter and Paul were held by him to be far above the three Gospels ot 
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, insomuch that these Epistles, together with the 
Gospel, and First Epistle of John, contain all, in his opinion, that is neces- 
sary for a Christian to know. — See his Preface to the Neio Testament, 1524. 

f " It is impossible," says Calvin, in a letter to Bullinger, "to bear any 
longer with the violences of Luther, whose self-love will not permit him to 
know his own defects, or to endure contradiction." Those who wish, indeed, 
for favorable portraits of the Reformers, must seek elsewhere than in the 
picture they have drawn of each other. In return for the polite names which 
Luther lavished upon his fellow-Protestants, calling them " blasphemers," 
" heretics," " devils," &c, they as freely retorted upon him such titles as the 
New Pope, the New Antichrist, and said that " those who could bear his 
violence must be as mad as himself." The same candor respecting each 
other seems to have pervaded the whole reforming circle, and while Me- 
lancthon tells us (Testim. Prcef. ad Frid. Mycon.) that Carlostadt was a bru- 
tal ignorant fellow, more of a Jew than a Christian, we are informed by 
CMvui (Er Calv.) that Bucer was full of tortuous and double-dealing ways, 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



175 



his weak, anile superstition,* — the rank absurdity of those parts 
of his faith which he parodied from Popery, and the want of 
all stamina in those abortions of doctrine which he chose to father 
himself, — his utter failure in bequeathing to his followers one 
lasting dogma, but his complete success in transmitting to them 
the worst bitterness of the dogmatic spirit, — having glaringly 
before us these characteristics of his whole career, both as man 
and reformer, it requires, I must say, the summoning up of all 
our most grateful recollections of the vast service rendered by 
him to mankind, in ihrowing open the documents of Faith to the 
search of Reason, to keep alive in our minds even a due show 
of respect to his memory, or enable us to listen, without impa- 
tience, to the eulogies that are sometimes lavished on his name." 

and that Osiander (in whose jokes Luther took such delight) was a man ot 
the most profane conversation and infamous morals. (Mel. Ep. ad Carrier.— 
Calv. Ep. ad Mel.) 

* Besides the fancies of Luther, already mentioned, respecting his inter- 
views and dialogues with the devil, he imputed also to this familiar, the severe 
illness of which he was near dying in 1532. In the same manner, some re- 
markable meteoric phenomena, which occurred in the following year, were, 
as Seckendorf tells us, attributed by Luther to diabolical agency. This his- 
torian, too, has preserved a letter from the Reformer to a servant-maid who 
was supposed to be possessed by a demon, and nothing could well be more 
weak or old-womanish than its contents. 

With the exception of all that related to the operations of the devil, in 
which department Luther's powers of belief shone unrivalled, his friend Me- 
lancthon was even more grossly superstitious than himself. It appears from 
his Letters that, while employed on the Confession of Augsburg, he attended 
anxiously to all stories of prodigies that were abroad, hoping to collect from 
them, omens as to the success of his cause. An extraordinary overflow of 
the Tiber, — a mule delivered of a foal, with a foot like that of a crane, ap 
peared to him, both of them, signs that something serious was at hand ; 
while the birth of a calf with two heads, within the very territory of Augs- 
burg, was an omen, he thought, of the approaching destruction of Rome by 
schism. This last portent, indeed, he communicates seriously, in a lelter 
to Luther, acquainting him at the same time that, on that very day, the Con- 
fession of Augsburg was to be presented to the Emperor ! That a mind, 
capable of such flights of absurdity, should believe also in the predictions of 
astrology, was not to be wondered at ; and accordingly we find that this 
noble victim of superstition was constantly brooding over the horrors of his 
own horoscope, which among other threatened misfortunes, had foretold that 
h3 was to be shipwrecked in the Baltic. 

Addicted as was not only Melancthon, but, — as would seem from his let 
ters, — the greater number of his correspondents, to this absurd belief in 
astrology, it does not appear, as far as I can learn, that they were any of them 
acquainted with the alleged prediction, respecting Luther himself, which, 
through the astrological calculations of Landin, was discovered in Dante, 
Infem. Cant. i. — (See the remarks on this passage in Mr. Taafe's ingenious 
Comment on Dante. Murray, 1822.) As a still further proof that the poet 
could have meant no other than Luther, by his "Greyhound," M.Rossetti 
has, it seems, found out that the word Veltro is but an anagram of the great 
Reformer's name I 



[7b 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

Lecture continued: — the Reformer, Zwingli — superior to all the others — his 
doctrine on the Lord's Supper and Baptism — original author of Rational- 
ism — followed by Socinus. — Analogy between Transubstantiation and the 
Trinity. 

" Of all the men whom the great crisis of the Reformation 
called forth, the most clear-sighted, consistent, and enlightened 
was, beyond all question, Zwingli ; and it is among the instances 
which show how, in all such revolutions, the thinkers anticipate 
the actors, that the mind of Zwingli was already in advance on 
the road to religious freedom, at a time when Luther still lin- 
gered in the dark thraldom of Popery. That to the latter, when 
once roused, the praise of enterprise and its reward, success, 
were most amply due, cannot be denied. But the advantage in 
mind, which Zwingli possessed over him at starting, he main- 
tained ever after ; — not only throughout their joint-living career, 
but in those important effects which have, to this day, survived 
themselves. 

" Of the short-lived dogmas, indeed, of Luther, it may be said, 
(to borrow an illustration from one of your English writers,) that 
£ they rose like the rocket, and fell like the stick ;' while not a 
single one of those doctrines which Zwingli either introduced or 
adopted, — such is the vitality which good sense can infuse into 
all that it handles, — has been suffered to pass away from the Pro. 
testant faith ; for, while his rational view of the Eucharist very 
early supplanted both the monstrous mystery of Luther and the 
evasive Real Absence* of Calvin, his simple and unmysterioua 
doctrine respecting Baptism has, for a long time, been adopted 

* The Calvinistic view of the Eucharist is thus explained by a learned 
Protestant : " Calvin and Beza will not allow the bread and wine to be so 
much as the vehicle of the body and blood, but make these things not only 
distinct but very far distant from each other. They allowed nothing but 
bare elements to be taken from the celebrator, and if men, over and above, 
receive the body and blood of Christ, that was to be attributed to their own 
faith, by which they imagined they could communicate of the body and 
blood, at any other place, and in any other religious action, as well as at the 
Lord's Table or at the Sacrament." — Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice. 

The same industrious inquirer into Christian antiquity, says, in speaking 
of the view of this Sacrament now prevalent in the Church of England : — 
"But what all ages and Christians before thought too mean and base to be 
the whole entertainment for pious souls at the Table of the Lord, that is, 
mere bread and wine, without either natural or spiritual body and blood 
joined to them, or accompanying them, without any divine grace or benedic- 
tion shed upon them by the Holy Ghost, — these weak elements, barely set 
apart for a pious use, our Arminians and Socinians have substituted for the 
Medicine of Immortality, the Sanctifying Pood, the Heavenly as well as 
Earthly Thing, the Spiritual Nourishment) the Divine Substance, the Tre- 
mendous Mystery of the Ancients." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION 



177 



by most Brotestant Churches, and has even found its way, in 
spite of Catechism and Articles, among your subscribing Church 
of England Divines. 

<k Nor was it so much by the example he thus set towards 
clearing away the alleged mysteries, of Christianity, as by the 
mode of interpreting the text of Scripture which he adopted for 
this purpose, that Zwingli established his claims to the gratitude 
of all lovers of the reasonable and the intelligible. The rule laid 
down by him, for this great object, and which he fully exem- 
plified in his own manner of dealing with the Eucharist, is simply 
as follows : — never to let the mere literal sense of a passage of 
Scripture stand in the way of a rational interpretation of its 
meaning; but, wherever the words, taken literally, would imply 
something irreconcilable to reason, to solve the difficulty by 
having recourse to a metaphorical sense. 

" Thus when Christ, for instance, in instituting the Eucharist, 
said, taking the bread in his hands, 4 This is my body,' the words, 
thus solemnly uttered, were accepted, there is no doubt, by the 
Primitive Christians, in their strict literal sense,* even as Christ 
himself uttered them ; and the miracle which he then announced, 
as one permanent, through all future time, in his Church, held 
its place in the faith of the whole Christian world for a period 
of no less than fifteen centuries. 

" In the just confidence, however, that no antiquity, however 
venerable, has any right to establish a prescription in favor of 
fiction and error, the philosophic mind of Zwingli at once saw 
through the misconception which had, even from the Apostles 
themselves, veiled the meaning of these words, and, by the ap- 
plication of that test of scriptural truth to which I have just re- 
ferred, showed manifestly that, in saying of the bread, ' This is 
my body,' Christ could have meant only, 'This signifies' or ' is 
the sign of my body.' 

;t It was, I repeat, in his bold adoption and enforcement of this 
simple mode of interpretation, that Zwingli's chief and inappre- 
ciable service to the cause of Rationalism lay. For, though he 
himself did not extend the principle further than to the Eucharist 
and Baptism, it has been, by later followers in the same natural- 
izing path, applied to other mysteries not less untenable. It is 
therefore to the example first set by this Reformer, in rejecting 
all that was miraculous in the Sacraments, that we owe that 

* To this belief, as being that of the ancient Church, the immortal Leib- 
nitz thus bears testimony: — Aiunt enim (the Impanatores) corpus Christi 
exhibere in, cum et sub pane, itaque cum Christus dixit, hoc est corpus 
mourn, intelligunt qucmadmodum si quis sacco ostenso diceret, hsec est pe- 
cunia. Sed pia anliquilas aperte satis declaravil panem mutari in corpus 
Christi, vinum in sangidnem passimque hicveteres agnoscunt metastoicheisin 
quam Latini transubstantionem recte veterunt. — Systema Theologicum. 



173 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



process of simplification which the whole system of Christianity 
since has undergone, till, gradually purified through the succes- 
sive strainers of Arminianism, Socinianism, and Unitarianism, it 
has, at length, settled into that clear and, if I may so say, filtered 
state of belief, unobscured by mystery, and unembittered by con- 
troversy, which is exhibited in the rationalized creed of our 
Protestant Churches at this day. 

" In mystery and supernaturalism has ever lain the strong-hold 
of priestly influence ; and the two grand and unfailing sources 
of this influence, in the creed which preceded those of the Re- 
formation, were the Real Presence and the Trinity. In getting 
rid of the first of these, the Swiss Reformer not only opened an 
inlet for light on this one particular point, where, as Milton said 
of his own blindness, ' Wisdom was, at one entrance, quite shut 
out,' but also, by the principle which he applied, as a touchstone 
to this long-standing miracle, prepared the way for the fate, at 
no distant day, of its twin mystery, the Trinity. He was, in 
fact, suspected of being, on this latter doctrine also, a Ration- 
alist ; insomuch that Luther, who was too acute not to perceive 
that all such mysteries have one common cause, called on him 
publicly for an explanation of his orthodoxy on the subject. 

" It was, indeed, hardly possible these men should be blind to 
the sure and natural consequences of the revolutionary principle 
which they were introducing into religion ; and how clearly 
Melancthon, at least, foresaw that the Nicene mystery of the 
Trinity would, in its turn, be arraigned at the bar of all-judging 
Reason, appears from a passage in one of his letters, where, 
speaking of Servetus, he says, i You know I always feared that 
there would be, at last, this outbreak about the Trinity. Good 
God ! what tragedies will these questions, Whether the Word is 
a Person, Whether the Spirit is a Person, give rise to among 
our descendants !'* 

" So conscious was Zwingli himself of the invaluable prize 
which he had lighted on, in this discovery of a mode of interpret- 
ing Scripture, which would bring its mysteries down to the level 
of human reason, that he used to call his application of this prin- 
ciple to Christ's words, his ' Margarita felix,' or £ happy pearl,' 
— as though with a sort of joyful anticipation he was looking 
forward to those still further triumphs over error, which future 
champions of Reason would, with the same simple weapon, 
achieve.f 

* Tlcpi rrig TpiaSog scis me semper veritum esse fore ut haec aliquando 
erumperent. Bone Deus, quales tragedias excitabit haec quaestio ad Poste- 

ros, £i Earn/ vnouratjis 6 Aoyos ei eariv vnoaTacris to TLvsvfia. — Lib. 4. Ep. 140. 

f In this mode of interpretation, as in every thing else, the ancient heretics 
anticipated the modern. Thus Tertullian tells us (de Resurrect. Carnis) that 
those who opposed, in lis time, the doctrine of the Resurrection of the flesh, 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



179 



«<Nor was there long wanting one to wield this weapon with 
a degree of courage and effect which will for ever render his 
name i a hissing' in all priestly ears, — the learned and excellent 
Socinus. The very same principles of interpretation by which 
Zwingli had been enabled to relieve Christianity from the por- 
tentous incubus of a Real Presence, were made equally avail- 
able by Socinus for the subversion of Christ's divinity, and of all 
the complex machinery of mysteries connected with that belief.* 
In one of his works, on this latter subject, we find the great pa- 
rent of Socinianism pointing out as well the analogy that exists 
between Transubstantiation and the Trinity, as the similar pro- 
cesses of reasoning by which both are to be rejected ; j~ and the 
following are the terms in which he sums up his parallel : — 

" 4 But, as the monstrous and sophistical notion of the Eucha 
rist has been, by the help of God, so plainly exposed, that even 
children, with reason, laugh at and explode it, and it is now 
evident that what was reckoned the most divine mystery of the 
Christian Religion is the grossest idolatry, so we hope that the 
shocking fictions concerning our God and his Christ, which at 
present are supposed to be sacred and worthy of the deepest 
reverence, and to constitute the principal mysteries of our re. 
ligion, will, with God's permission, be so laid open and treated 
with such scorn, that every one will be ashamed to embrace them, 
or even bestow any attention on them.' — Socin. Opera, Tom. I. 

argued that " the language of Scripture is frequently figurative, and ought to 
be so considered in this instance ; the resurrection of which it speaks being a 
moral or spiritual resurrection." 

* The doctrine of Christ's Satisfaction, for instance, is thus got rid of by 
Socinus: — "Even though I should find it written, not to say once, but fre- 
quently, in the Sacred W ritings, I still would not believe it in the sense 
which you have put on it. For, as that is utterly impossible, I would inter- 
pret all such passages accordingly, giving them the sense that suited my 
views of the matter, as I have done with many other passages of the Scrip- 
tures." — Socin. Lib. 3, de Servatore, As further specimens of his manner of 
applying this rule of interpretation, it need only be mentioned that in his 
Exposition of the First Chapter of John's Gospel, he overleaps the difficulty 
which there meets him in limine by maintaining that John, in calling Jesus 
the Word of God, uses at once a metaphor and a metonymy ; and the passage 
(v. 14) where it is said that " the Word was made Flesh," he explains away 
by showing that the verb zyzvtTo, which is here translated " was made," means 
sometimes simpl} "was." "Therefore," he adds, "we ought not, in this 
passage, to translate the verb was made flesh, but, was flesh. For it has been 
sufficiently proved already that by the term, the Word, must be understood 
the man who was born of the Virgin Mary, who could not be made flesh, 
but was flesh." — A disciple, it must be owned, worthy of him who first showed 
that the words " This is my body" mean " This signifies my body!" 

f The biographer of Socinus, Toulmin, in defending tMs mode of " having 
recourse to a figurative and more lax sense of all such passages as otherwise 
assert things derogatory to the divine perfections," adds, " there is no other 
way of evading the force of the Papist's argument for Transubstantiation, from 
the express words of the Institution .'' 7 



180 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



" It is more peculiarly, perhaps, in that branch of the History 
of the Reformation which relates to the rise and progress of 
Anti-Trinitarian doctrines that we are able to trace, step by step, 
the natural working of the principle which that revolution, in 
favor of reason against authority, introduced. The impossibility 
of fixing a boundary, at which Reason, once started on her in- 
quisitorial career, shall consent to rein in her speed, could not 
be more strikingly exemplified than in those successive stages 
of Reform by which the dignity of Christ's nature was lowered 
from its divine station, losing, at every stage, some attribute of 
glory that once belonged to it, — first, to the subordinate, but still 
heavenly rank assigned to it by the Arians ; then, by a further 
fall, to the region, half-heavenly, half- earthly, of Socinianism, 
and from thence down, by rapid descent, to the entirely human 
solution of the whole mystery, in the creed of the Unitarian." 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

Lecture continued. — Anti-Trinitarian doctrines among the Reformei's. — Va- 
lentinus Gentilis. — Socinianism — its weak points. — Progress of Anti- 
Trinitarianism — the Holy Spirit, not a Person, but an attribute. 

" Among those bolder speculators who ventured, early in the 
progress of the Reformation, to express openly their dissent from 
the received doctrine of the Trinity, the only one whose opinions 
on the subject seem to have been stated clearly, either by him 
self or others, was Valentinus Gentilis. This Italian Reformer, 
(one of the scions from that nursery of Anti-Trinitarianism, estab- 
lished in the year 1546 at Vicenza,) though he was for despoil- 
ing the Saviour of his Godhead, still allowed him to have been a 
super-angelic spirit, born before all worlds, who became incar- 
nate in the human body of Jesus, with the view of effecting the 
salvation of man. 

" The next step, in the descending scale, was the doctrine of 
Socinus, who, rejecting, as a notion unsanctioned by scriptural 
evidence, all belief in the pre-existence and superior nature of 
Christ, held that he was, by nature, man, though of miraculous 
birth, — being conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, 
without the intervention of any human being. Thus being pro- 
perly, said Socinus, the Son of God, and endued with divine 
wisdom and power, Christ was sent, with supreme authority, on 
an embassy to fnankind ; and, after his death and resurrection, 
becoming, like a God, immortal, received from the Father all 
power in heaven and earth, having all things, with the exception 
of God himself alone, placed under his feet. To a Being invested 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



181 



with this divine sovereignty, it seemed naturally to follow that 
divine worship was due : and Socinus, in according such wor- 
ship, was far more consistent than a great number of his fol- 
lowers,* who, while they hesitated not to believe that a human 
creature could have been elevated to all this Godlike sway, yet, 
with a reservation not very intelligible, refused to invoke so 
mighty a sovereign in their prayers. 

" It required, in truth, but a very little further advance of the 
rationalizing principle to supersede, by some more plausible 
scheme, the well-meant, but wholly untenable system of Socinus, 
who, by this transfer of all the power of heaven and earth into 
subordinate hands, made of Christ a sort of M aire du Palais, and 
degraded the Almighty into a Faineant. One of his disciples, 
Palaeologus, had suggested, — evidently as a means of escape 
from the grand absurdity of their system, — that, though such 
power might have been intrusted to Christ, during his stay on 
earth and before the fall of Jerusalem, he had, since his death, 
resigned all into the hands of the Father, and no longer himself 
directed the concerns of his kingdom. This easy escape, how- 
ever, out of ah absurdity, which was even more gross than that 
of the believers in the God-man,"}" was rejected indignantly by 
Socinus, who, with the self-opinion characteristic of a system- 
monger, still persevered in his own views; and the following 
extract from his answer to Palaeologus, in which, it will be per- 
ceived, he disposes of all the arrangements of the Divine gov 
ernment as familiarly as he would any matters of mere earthly 
concernment, will show, at once, the difficulties of the system 
which he wished to substitute for the Trinity, and the grossly 
human hypothesis by which he endeavored to get rid of them. 

" Thus does he argue with his disciple : — 

" £ If Christ be not removed to any distant place, from whence 
he cannot himself govern his kingdom ; if he be not hindered by 
other engagements ; if, lastly, he live for ever and be not fallen 

* The same spirit of variation and dissention which has marked the course • 
of every other branch of Protestanism, we find also among the Socinians. 
After the arrival of Socinus in Poland, the Unitarians there formed thirty- 
two distinct societies, which had, as we are told, scarcely any common prin- 
ciple but this, that Jesus Christ was not the true God. — Dictionnaire des 
Heresies. 

Those who take an interest in the history of Unitarian doctrines will find 
their curiosity gratified by the instructive sketch of the progress of Socinian- 
ism which Dr.* Rees has prefixed to his edition of the Racovian Catechism. 

| The absurdity of the scheme of Socinus is thus sneered at by a brother 
infidel — " And though the Socinians disown this practice [of allowing seem- 
ing contradictions in religion,] I am mistaken if either they or the Arians can 
make their notions of a dignified and Creature-God capable of Divine worship 
appear more reasonable than the extravagances of other sects, touching the 
arlicie of the Trinity." — Toland's Christianity not mysterious. 

16 



182 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



into inactive sleep, it is most, weak to suppose that he hath re. 
signed his kingdom to the Father, especially when the sacred 
Scriptures say not a word of it. 

" ' If you allow Christ's care of his kingdom before the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, as is very plain, for what reason should 
you deny it after this, and assert that he has resigned it to his 
Father ? Is it because Christ has perhaps since removed to some 
remote place from whence he may not be able to govern his 
kingdom, or is so engaged in other concerns, as to have no lei. 
sure for this office ? or does he sleep during this interval, for I 
cannot imagine that you will be so mad as to say that he is 
again dead.'* — Socin. Opera, Tom. II. 

" This, from a worshipper of the Power of Reason, was, it 
must be owned, but a sorry offering at her shrine, But even 
the failures of such bold adventurers, in the cause of truth, have 
their use ; — the very wrecks they leave become beacons for the 
guidance of those who follow them. The opinion,"}" that Christ 
was neither to be worshipped nor invoked, was but a forerunner 
of those further curtailments of his dignity which were soon, in 
the natural course of such sifting inquiries, to take place. It 
was now found that his miraculous conception was unsupported 
by any scriptural authority, besides that of the introductory 
Chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke ; and this evi- 
dence, on the subject, a bold and unscrupulous spirit of criticism, 
which had now enlisted itself in the service of Rationalism, pro- 
nounced to be spurious.^: 

" The simple humanity of Christ's nature being thus clearly 
established, all that confusion between celestial and earthly na- 
tures, which had so long puzzled and shocked all reflecting 
Christians, was, to the great relief of common sense, effectually 
got rid of ; while, by a similar verdict, or rather series of ver- 
dicts, the third member of the Trinity was disposed of in the 
same rational and satisfactory manner. By a scale of reduction, 

* Who could believe that it was of a man capable of uttering such bias 
phemies, that the following eulogium was pronounced ? — " High, most de- 
servedly high, as those great Reformers stand, Luther, Zuinglius, and Calvin, 
in the Book of Fame, Faustus Socinus will be found to rank as high in the 
Book of Life, which is of more consequence." — Theological Repository, VoL I. 

f If we may believe his persecutor, Socinus, (for, however strange it may 
appear, these apostles of free-thinking have almost all been persecutors,) 
David went so far as to assert that "it was the same thing to invoke Jesus 
Christ as to pray to the Virgin Mary and other dead saints." — Socin. Opera, 
Tom. 2. 

I Some of the English Unitarians, content with rejecting only the two first 
chapters of Matthew, retain those of Luke, in which the passage relating to 
the miraculous conception has been explained by one of their most learned 
writers, as not necessarily supposing that there was any tiling supernatural 
in the conception of Jesus. — Unitarianism the Doctrine of the Gospel, by Dr. 
f.arpenter. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



183 



even more summary and rapid, the Holy Spirit was, in like man- 
ner, lowered, till, from its high and substantial station, as a con- 
stituent Person of the Godhead, it came to be stripped, at last, 
of all claims to be considered a Person, at all ; — the conclusion 
to which the Socinian Reformers came, on this point, being that 
the Holy Ghost implies the Power and Energy of God, and is, 
according to the Scriptures, not a person, but an attribute.* 

" In this outline of the course of one of the great branches of 
the Reformation, may be traced the working, step by step, of 
that naturalizing principle which has more or less operated, 
throughout the progress of them all, and must, sooner or later, 
bring all to the same simplified result. And for these happy ef- 
fects, — still happier in the further consequences yet to spring 
from them, — we are indebted, primarily, of course, to that grand 
principle of the Reformation, which brought matters of faith 
within the jurisdiction of Reason, but secondarily, and above all 
others, to him who asserted that principle in its fullest extent, 
the bold and philosophic- minded Zvvingli. 

" In fact, by none of those who co-operated with him was the 
spirit of their mighty cause maintained with half such consis- 
tency, while living, or transmitted with half such effect to other 
times. Luther himself was, as I have shown, disqualified both 
by his temper and his superstition"j" for leaving behind him any 
durable monument but his name; while Melancthon, though hur 

* After referring to numerous authorities on this point, one of the Editors 
of the Racovian Catechism (Wissowatius) thus concludes: — " It is most 
safe, therefore, adhering to the proper import of the word, to believe the Holy 
Spirit to be the power and energy of God, and consequently his gift, as is clearly 
revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament." 
There was, on this point, however, some difference of opinion among these 
sectaries, and the Father of the English Unitarians, John Bidle, was one of 
those who, as we are told, " took the Holy Spirit to be a Person, Chief of the 
Heavenly Spirits, Prime Minister of God and Christ, and therefore called the 
Spirit, by way of excellence." — Brief History of the Unitarians, 1687. 

f To the picture of Luther, already presented in these pages, I cannot 
help adding two more touches, — one, from his own unerring hand, — which 
the above remark of the Professor suggests to me. In a preface to his works, 
written but a short time before his death, the Reformer says, " When I en- 
gaged in the cause of the Reformation I was a most frantic Papist ; so intoxi- 
cated, nay, so drenched in the dogmas of the Pope, that I was quite ready to 
put to death, if I had been able, or to co-operate with those who would have 
put to death, persons who refused obedience to the Pope, in any single article." 
That he carried this amiable temper with him into the new extreme which 
he e-.pouscd, cannot be doubted; and I shall only- add to the specimens 
already given of the tolerance of his spirit, the account which Seckendorf, the 
able apologist, both of Lutheranism and its author, has left on record respect- 
ing the dispositions of his hero towards the Jews. It was Luther's opinion, 
says Seckendorf, that their synagogues should be levelled with the ground, 
their houses destroyed, their books of prayer and of the Talmud, and of the 
Old Testament, taken from them, that their Rabbis should be forbid to teach, 
and ibrced by hard labor to get their bread, &c. &c. 



184 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



ried forward in the foaming wake of his leader, still sighed for 
the safe moorings of the Church, and was, at heart, half-Papist.* 
" Nor less unfit, though in a very different point of view, was 
Calvin, for the task of reconciling religion to reason, and estab- 
lishing a faith such as men of sense could adopt. After rejecting, 
— or rather juggling awayyj" — the oldest mystery of Christianity, 
he introduced others, entirely unknown to antiquity, in its place ; 
and, while that which he cast off was but chargeable with being 
offensive to human reason, what he adopted implies impeach- 
ment of the character of God himself. For what less can be 
said of his mystery of Election and Reprobation — a mystery into 
whose dark recesses none can look without shuddering, and 
which would make of the Almighty a Being such as even his 
own Chosen could not love. J 

* The Professor alludes, no doubt, to Melancthon's opinions in favor of 
Jie Primacy of the Pope, as well as his decidedly Catholic language, on the 
subject of the Eucharist, in the Apology for the Confession of Augsburg. It 
is curious enough that the very same passage, from the ancient Canon of the 
Mass, (implying expressly a change of substance, in the elements, after con- 
secration) which gave such scandal by its admission into Melancthon's 
A-pology, was adopted afterwards in the Liturgy which Charles I endeavored 
to force on the people of Scotland. 

f By no other word than "juggle" could the Professor have half so justly 
described the sort of conjurer's process by which Calvin, in his mere mockery 
of a Sacrament, first lays before us the " proper substance" (as he proclaims 
it) of Christ's body, assuring us that it is as substantially present to the com- 
municant as was the Holy Spirit under the form of a dove, and then, presto, 
by a sudden wave of the wand, converting this real presence into an absence, 
and showing that the receiver and the thing received are as distant from each 
other as earth is from heaven ! It is a strong proof, however, of the force of 
our Saviour's words, in instituting the Eucharist, that, while they compelled 
Luther, against his will, to believe in a Real Presence, they forced Calvin, 
with no less reluctance, to endeavor to seem to believe in it ; — though, after 
all, the true explanation of Calvin's doctrine on this point, is to be found in 
the profane pun of his disciple Beza, who said that the body of Christ "non 
magis esse in Cotna quam in Cceno." 

X The following concise and just statement of the fearful hypothesis of 
Calvinism, is from Bishop Copleston's clearly reasoned treatise on the sub- 
ject. — " We cannot, indeed, conceive how a Being who knows all things that 
will come to pass, should subject another being of his own creating to trial; 
that he should expose this being to temptation, knowing what the issue will 
be, and yet speak to him before, and treat him afterwards, as if he did not 
know it." I have already shown (pag^e 89) into what frightful blasphemies 
the natural consequence of this doctrine betrayed Luther and other sup- 
porters of it. With equal conciseness, another necessary consequence of 
Calvinism was put by a certain Landgrave of Turing, a great patron of the 
Reformed Doctrines, who, on being admonished by his friends of the disso- 
lute course of life he was leading, made answer, " Si praedestinatus sum, 
nulla peccata poterunt mihi regnum cceiorum auferre ; si praescitus, nulla 
opera mihi illud valebunt conferre." "If I am one of the Elect, no crimes that 
I may commit can deprive me of the kingdom of heaven ; if I am one of the 
R-eprobate, no works that I can perform will avail any thing towards be- 
stowing it on me." — " An objection," adds Dr. Heylin, by whom the cir- 
cumstance is mentioned, "not more old than common, but such, I must 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



ISO 



"To Zwingli, in short, alone, of all that memorable band, can 
Ihe combined qualities required to constitute a great Reformer 
be attributed. Enterprising, but temperate, keeping the specu- 
lative in subordination to the practical, and while throwing his 
energies into the present, still looking forward to the interests 
□f the future, — firm in his own views and purposes, yet tolerant 
of the opposing opinions of others, — this great man not only, 
while living, showed himself worthy of the free cause for which 
he died, but, in dying, bequeathed a legacy of his spirit to man. 
Kind, in that rational mode of interpreting the Scriptures which 
he taught, and the consequent release from mystery, and its at- 
tendant, Priestcraft, which the application of that golden rule has 
since achieved for us. 

" To the slow, but sure, working of this one simple principle, 
We are indebted, I repeat, for the state of the Christian world at 
this moment. Hence, that philosophic calm, or, — as fanatics 
choose to denominate it, — Indifferentism, which has succeeded 
lO the bitter and vehement controversies that once convulsed all 
Europe. Hence, the deniers of Christ's divinity, whose fate, in 
former times, would have been the dungeon or the stake, may 
now deny, with impunity,— -may even pass muster as Christians, 
and take their station in the rear-ranks of Belief, unmolested.* 

" Even into regions that might have been supposed the least 
accessible to such light, the subtle influence of this principle 
has yet unerringly worked its way ; for, look to your boasted 
Church of England, — who could ever, in the days of an Abbot 
or a Laud, have foreseen the possibility of such phenomena, 
among her Bishops, as a Hoadly and a Clayton ? f What 

confess, to which I never found a satisfactory answer from the pen of Supra- 
lapsarian or Sublapsarian, within the small compass of my reading." — 
Quinquarticular History. 

* The position of Unitarianism, on the scale of Christian belief, is well 
described by the late Bishop Heber, who calls it a system which " leans on 
the utmost verge of Christianity, and which has been, in so many instances, 
a stepping-stone to simple Deism." The accomplished Bishop would, no 
doubt, have been shocked to be told (what is, nevertheless, but too true) that 
his own. religion was but the first of the stepping-stones in this path. 

f Of the Essay on Spirit, which this distinguished Prelate of the Church 
of Ireland published under his own name, in 1751, the zealous Whitaker 
thus speaks : — " This folly (of Arianism) has been recently revived by what 
appears a monster of absurdity to these later ages, an Arian Bishop of the 
Church. Bishop Clayton revived it in his Essay on Spirit." It has been 
said that Clayton was only guilty of the imprudence of lending his name to 
this work, which was, in reality, the production of a young clergyman of his 
diocese. But the hostility of this bishop, not only to the Athanasian, but the 
Nicene Creed, and the bold effort which he made, by appealing to the House 
of Lords on the subject, to have both Creeds expunged from the Liturgy of 
the Irish Church, show that, though not, perhaps, the author of the Essay in 
question, he concurred sufficiently with it, in spirit, to be held answerable foi 
all its heterodoxy. 

16* 



186 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



prophet would have then dared to predict that a day would yet 
arrive, when the mark of Arius would be seen peeping from 
undor the mitres of the Establishment, and even Socinianism be 
allowed to touch, with her disenchanting wand, the long-vaunted 
orthodoxy of the Church of England Sacraments f "* 



CHAPTER XLV. 

Lecture continued. — Effects of the rationalizing mode of interpretation, as 
exhibited in Germany. — Contrasts between past and present state of Pro- 
testantism. — Inspiration of the Scriptures rejected. — Authenticity of books 
of the Old and New Testament questioned, &c. &c. 

" We have seen that, even within the guarded precincts of the 
Church of England Establishment, — pledged, as it is, by Articles, 
and moreover bribed, by rich rewards, into orthodoxy, — the nat- 
ural consequences of the primal principle of Protestantism have, 
in many instances, shown themselves, and would, doubtless, un- 
der a system of Church Government, less appealing to strong 
worldly considerations, have been still more fully, or I should 
rather say, more openly developed. 

" But, — to bring home at once to the scene of its most extensive 
and signal results, this inherent and ever-working principle of 
the Reformation, — need I point elsewhere than to my own coun- 
try, Germany, for manifestations of its activity and its power ? 
can we ask any more convincing proof of the efficiency of that 
one simple doctrine which taught that the Scriptures are to be 
interpreted according to the light of Reason, than is afforded in 
the deep, radical, and all-pervading change which it has worked 
throughout the whole system of religious belief in Germany ?y 

* In charging the Hoadlyan scheme of the Sacrament with Socinianism, 
the Professor but echoes the language of one of the few Prelates of the Church 
of England, who have thought proper to declare themselves against this now 
prevalent opinion among the members of the Establishment. In a Sermon, 
preached before the University of Oxford, the late Bishop Cleaver, after im- 
pressing upon his hearers the intimate connexion which subsists between the 
importance of the Lord's Supper and the dignity of Christ's nature, — 
insomuch that any depreciation of the high benefits of the former is, in effect, 
a denial of the divinity of the latter, — proceeds to say that the fame acquired 
in certain quarters, by Bishop Hoadly's Plain Account of the Sacrament, 
was ''■for the sake of its connexion with Socinian notions." 

| " It need not be added," says the Rev. Mr. Rose, Christian Advo- 
cate in the University of Cambridge, " that the Protestant Church of Germany 
is the mere shadow of a name. For this abdication of Christianity was not con- 
fined to either the Lutheran or Calvinist profession, but extended its baleful 
and withering influence with equal force over each." — Sermons. Similar to 
this is the account given by a German writer, Baron Starke ; — " Protestant- 
ism," he says, " is so degenerated, that little more than its mere name sub- 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



187 



"Among that people, who once, in their zeal for the infalli- 
bility of Scripture, maintained that the whole of it had been dic- 
tated verbatim by the Holy Spirit,* — that the very Hebrew points 
and accents of the Old Testament were inspired, and, still further, 
that even those formularies and Confessions of Faith, every line 
of which teemed with materials for wrangling, were, one and 
all, suggested by the same Heavenly prompter, — among that very 
people, so vast a change has the reasoning principle wrought,-)- 
that they now reject all supposition of inspiration whatever, and 
regard the whole of the Scriptures themselves, from beginning 
to end, as a series of venerable, but human, and, therefore, fallible 
documents. 

" In that same country whose theologians once prized the Old 
Testament as an equally valuable repository of Christian faith 
with the New, — seeing under the veil of its types the substance 
of the Gospel, and in its prophecies an inverted history of the 

sists at the present day. At all events, it must be owned, it has undergone 
so many changes, that, if Luther and Melancthon were to rise again, they 
would not know the Church which was the work of their industry." — Entret. 
Philosoph. 

* " Such an exaggerated theory of inspiration," says Mr. Pusey, " did 
undoubtedly contribute mainly to shake in Germany the -belief in the doc- 
trine itself, since, the whole seemed to depend upon this faulty theological 
system. It was a fancied idea of expediency, in support of the main Protestant 
position against the Romanists, which gave rise to this system among them. 
Deeply have their descendants to regret their short-sighted policy." Thus 
was party-spirit a* the bottom of all, during the first struggles of Protes- 
tantism. Having set up the Bible, as their sole guide, in opposition to 
the Catholics, to uphold its entire inspiration, in every word and syllable, 
became a point not so much of religion as of honor with the party ; and the 
consequence has been, according to the ordinary course of such extremes, 
that the descendants of those very men who cried up the Bible as every thing, 
have now succeeded, as we see, in degrading the Bible to almost nothing. 

f The following extract from the Sermons of Mr. Rose, — the gentleman 
to whom we owe our first full insight into the state of Protestantism in Ger- 
many, — contains, in a few words, such a general view of the subject as may 
save me the trouble of referring to his authority for the details : — " They (the 
rationalizing Divines of Germany) are bound by no law but their own fan- 
cies ; some are more and some less extravagant; but I do them no injustice, 
after this declaration, in saying, that the general inclination and tendency of 
their opinions (more or less forcibly acted on) is this, — that, in the New Tes- 
tament, we shall find only the opinions of Christ and the Apostles adapted to 
the age in which they lived, and not eternal truths ; that Christ himself had 
^cither the design nor the power of teaching any system which was to endure ; 
that, when he taught any enduring truth, as he occasionally did, it was with- 
out being aware of its nature ; that the Apostles understood still less of real 
religion ; that the whole doctrine, both of Christ and his Apostles, as it is 
directed to the Jews alone, so it was gathered in fact from no other source 
than the Jewish Philosophy; that Christ himself erred, and his Apostles 
spread his errors, and that, consequently, no one of his doctrines is to be re- 
ceived on their authority ; but that, without regard to the authority of the Books 
of Scripture, and their asserted divine origin, each doctrine is to be examined 
according to the principles of right reason, before it is allowed to be divine. 



188 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



mission of Christ* — iii that country a more inquiring and dis- 
cerning theology has now severed all such connexion between 
the two codes. Instead of finding Christ every where in the 
pages of the Old Testament, these divines (as was once objected 
to Grotiusf) find him no where; — the prophecies hitherto as- 
sumed as having reference to the Saviour being meant really to 
refer to the future state of the Jews, and having, consequently, 
no further connexion with Christ than as accommodated by him- 
self and others to his mission. The many wonderful instances 
which the Hebrew Scriptures record of the direct interposition 
of God in this world, are no longer looked upon as aught but 
Jewish images and dreams : those historical narratives for whose 
truth, and even verbal accuracy, the Holy Spirit, as their dictator, 
used formerly to be held accountable, are now explained away, 
as allegories, or rejected, as forgeries ; and even that most im- 
portant of all, on whose truth so much of Christianity depends, 
the Mosaic History of the Creation and Fall of Man, has been 
shown to bear on its face the features of mylhologic fiction. ± 

" While thus of the Old Testament our views have undergone 
such a change, some of our illusions, respecting the New, have 
been no less thoroughly dissipated. The notion, indulged in so 
fondly by our ancestors, not only of the inspiration of the whole 
volume, but of the uniform purity of its language, throughout, 
could not stand before the progress of an improving spirit of 
criticism ; and, accordingly, — imitating rather the boldness of 
Luther himself than the blind homage paid by his Church to 
every syllable of Scripture, — our Divines have dealt as uncere- 
moniously with most parts of the New Testament, as did the 
great Reformer himself with the Epistle of St. James. They 
have shown that, in most of the Epistles, gross errors and in- 

* "They held," says Mr. Pusey, in speaking of those former theologians 
of Germany, "that all the distinguishing doctrines of Christianity were even 
to the Jews as much revealed in the Old Testament as in the New, and that 
the knowledge of these doctrines was as necessary to their salvation as ours." 
He then adds that " no error seems to have prepared so much for the sub- 
sequent reaction, in which all prophecy was discarded, all doctrine considered 
to be precarious." — Historical Inquiry. To such a length were these notions 
carried at that period, (about 1640,) that the celebrated Lutheran, Calixtus, 
was accused of Arianism and Judaism, because he thought that the doctrine 
of the Trinity was not revealed with equal clearness in the Old as in the New 
Testament ; nor was, under the old dispensation, as necessary to salvation. 

f It was said, with reference to their different modes of interpretation, that 
f< Cocceius found Christ every where in the Old Testament, and Grotius 
found him no where. 

I On this point, the German Divines have not had all the Rationalism to 
themselves, as the Reverend author of the " Free Inquiry" was even beforehand 
with these critics in ridiculing the notion of " a Serpent's speaking and rea- 
soning." — See Middleton's Essay on this subject, and also his Letter tc Dr. 
Waterland. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



1S9 



terpolations abound, — the latter traceable chiefly to about the 
beginning of the second century ; while not only the Ej>isies, 
but the Gospel attributed to St. John, have been proved by Bret- 
schneider to have been the productions of some Gnostic of the 
same period.* 

"Nor is this all; for even the trust- worthiness of the remain- 
ing three Gospels has been called seriously into question by a 
most important discovery which we owe, in the first instance, to 
the sagacity of our learned Michaelis, but which others, since 
his time, have brought still further into light. The fact proved, 
as it appears, from clear internal evidence, by these critics is, 
that the Three first Gospels are not, in reality, the works of the 
writers whose names they bear, but merely transcriptions or 
translations of some anterior documents. f To the proofs brought 
by our Rationalists of this fact, there has been, as yet, no satis- 
factory answer from the orthodox : and thus the minds of all 
thinking Christians are left to the painful doubt whether the same 
hands that copied may not also have interpolated, and whether 
Protestants may not find that their sole guide of faith is, after all, 
but a dubious and fallible dependance, without those lights of 
tradition by which, conjointly with the Scriptures, the Catholic 
Church has, through all ages, steered her course. We know, 
from undoubted evidence, that, about the end of the second Cen- 
tury, both the forgery of new Gospels and the adulteration of old 
ones prevailed throughout the Christian world, to a very great 
extent ; and the latter species of fraud, if we may trust their mu- 
tual accusations, was, in an equal degree, practised both by her- 
etics and by the orthodox ; — ' Ego Marcionis adfirmo adulteratum 
(says Tertullian) Marcion meum.' 

* In the Preface to this work, Bretschneider justifies his object in writing 
it, hoth by the example of Luther and the principles of the Evangelical 
Church. — "Earn enira judicii libertatem non solum antiquissima sibi vin- 
dicavit ecclesia, sed ea quoque usus est Lutherus, eademque denique prin- 
cipiis ecclesiee evangelica? est quam convenientissima." Many other German 
theologians, besides Bretschneider, and, among the rest, Claudius, (Super- 
intendent of the Lutheran church, at Hildesheim !) have taken similar views 
as to the spuriousness of the writings attributed to St. John. 

j By Berthold, one of those critics who assert the existence of a common 
document, it is maintained that this original of the three first Gospels was 
written in Aramaic. The Epistles of St. Paul, too, — as well as, indeed, all 
the other Epistles, — he asserts, in like manner, to be merely translations from 
the Aramaic ; so that, as an able writer in the British Critic has remarked, 
on the subject, "instead of the good old-fashioned notion that the New 
Testament is a collection of works composed by the persons whose names 
they bear, and who wrote under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, 
v/c must now believe that the original narrator of the Gospel Hvstory was an 
unknown person; and that the Gospels and Epistles, which we read in 
Greek, are merely translations made by some persons whose names are lost, 
and who betray themselves by several blunders in the work which they un- 
dertook."— July, 1S23. 



190 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



" But however, ultimately, the question respecting the genu- 
ineness of these documents may be decided, the rational mode in 
which we now interpret both their facts and their doctrines com- 
pletely purges them of all that fanaticism and mystery from which 
Superstition has hitherto drawn her chief aliment ; and our method 
of solving all such unsoundnesses and inconsistencies in doctrine, 
is, like most methods that are found efficient in their operation, 
simple. It being admitted that, on some points, — and, among 
others, for instance, demoniacal possessions, — Christ accommo- 
dated himself to the prejudices and superstition of his hearers, 
we think it warrantable, wherever his precepts are found to jar 
with sound reason, to seek in the same temporizing policy the 
solution of such difficulties. 

" The doctrinal part of the New Testament being thus sifted 
of its irrationalism, there remained but the task of reconciling 
to the laws of reason and nature, those deviations from the course 
of both which its recorded miracles present ; and this not very 
easy service our theologians have attempted, with success as vari- 
ous as the modes which they have adopted for their purpose, — 
sometimes resolving the whole wonder into a mere exaggeration 
of natural phenomena ; sometimes showing, as in the instance 
of Jesus walking upon the sea, that to a preposition, mistrans- 
lated, the entire miracle owes its origin ;* and sometimes even 
(as was the case in the time of Mesmer's celebrity) attributing 
the wonderful cures performed by Christ to the effects of Animal 
Magnetism. - ]- In short, by one explanation or another, all that is 
miraculous in the relations of the New Testament has been evap- 
orated away effectually, leaving nothing but the mere human 
realities behind. 

" Thus, of all that imposing apparatus of miracles, — which, 

* According to this solution of the miracle, which we owe to a Professor 
of Theology, Paulus, the words' cm tx\v 6a\aaaav nepiiraTowra are to be trans- 
lated " walking by the sea," instead of " walking on the sea." His expla-" 
nation of the miracle of the tribute-money and the fish, is equally worthy of a 
Protestant Professor. "What sort of miracle is it," asks Paulus, "which 
is commonly found here? I will not say a miracle of about 16 or 20 groschen, 
(2s. Gd.) for the greatness of the value does not make the greatness of the 
miracle. But, it may be observed, that as, first, Jesus received, in general, 
support from many persons, (Judas kept the stock, John xii, 6,) in the same 
way as the Rabbis lived from such donations; as, secondly, so many pious 
women provided for the wants of Jesus ; as, finally, the claim did not occur 
at any remote place, but at Capernaum, where Christ had friends, a miracle 
tor about a dollar would certainly have been superfluous." For a further 
account of this precious Theologian, see Rose, State of Protestantism in 
Germany. 

f In speaking of the enthusiasts for animal magnetism, who went so far 
as to attribute to it the raising of the apparition of Samuel by the Pythoness, 
the Abbe" Grdgoire says, "Comme les neologues Protestans, ils appliquent 
a d'autres faits surnaturels racontes dans la Bible cette thaumaturgie medi 
ca le qui tendroit a. demolir tout le plan de la revelation." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



191 



having been conjured up as a necessary appendage to Christ's 
Divinity, should now, along with that Divinity, be suffered to 
pass away, — the only one that still retains a hold on our faith is 
the great miracle of the Resurrection, to which, in despite of all 
reasoning, human nature still clings, and which, therefore, but 
few of our theologians have yet ventured to call in question.* 

" Into a detail of the various doctrines, reputed hitherto as the 
very essence of Christianity, which have already fallen before the 
all-conquering march of Rationalism, it is not my intention here 
to enter. Suffice it to say, throughout that region, — including 
Switzerland^ within its circle,— which saw the birth, the triumphs, 
the excesses of the Reformation ; that region, where intolerance 
once rioted over its victims ; where Pestelius was condemned to 
death by the lawyers of Wittenberg for no other reason than that 
he differed with them on the subject of the Eucharist ; where 
Calvin brought Servetus to the stake, and the Bernese Reformers 
beheaded Gentilis, for opinions scarce more heterodox, on the 
Trinity, than those of Whiston and Dr. Samuel Clarke ; — through 
that whole region, not only the Trinity, but every doctrine at all 
connected with it, the superior nature of Christ, the Personality 
of the Holy Spririt, the Incarnation, J the Atonement with its at- 

* Among these is Paulus, who, in his Commentary, asserts, that Christ 
did not really die, but suffered a fainting fit. One of the fathers of Rational- 
ism, Selmer, held the Resurrection to be a sort of poetic mythus, which was 
to be received in some moral or allegorical sense ; and Wegschneider says, 
that though Christ seemed to the bystanders to expire, yet, after a few hours, 
being given up to the sedulous care of his friends, he returned to life on the 
third day. Mr. Pusey looks upon it as one of those symptoms of a return 
ing reverence for Christianity which he is sanguine enough to perceive in the 
present state of the Germans, that the doctrine of the Resurrection has 
resumed its place in their creed. "Many," he says, " I heard of, others I 
saw in Germany, who had formerly been cold Rationalists, but who were 
now in different degrees approximating to the fulness of Christianity. From 
the stage in which the one great miracle of our Saviour's Resurrection was 
held as the basis of Christian revelation, from this stage onwards there was 
progress." — Historical Inquiry. 

f " The ministers of Geneva," says a Protestant writer, Grenus, " have 
already passed the unchangeable barrier. They have held out the hand of 
fellowship to Deists and to the enemies of the faith. They even blush to 
make mention, in their Catechisms, of Original Sin, without which the Incar- 
nation of the Eternal Word is no longer necessary." Rousseau, in his 
Lettres de la Montagne, gives much the same account of the Genevese of his 
own time: — "When asked," he says, "if Jesus Christ is God, they do not 
dare to answer. When asked, what mysteries they admit, they still do not 

dare to answer A philosopher casts upon them a rapid glance 

and penetrates them at once, — he sees they are Arians, Socinians." 

I We find clear work made of all these mysteries by a German divine, 
Cannabich, who in a " Review of the ancient and new Dogmas of the Chris- 
tian Faith," coolly sets aside the Trinity, Original Sin, Justification, the 
Satisfaction of Christ, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, as taught in his own 
Church. This levelling divine (who held one of the highest dignities in the 
Lutheran Church) thus speaks of the Trinity : — " The dogma of the Trinity 



192 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



tendant mysteries, have all, by the great mass of Protestants, of 
ail denominations, been cast off, as fictions and absurdities, fron 
their creed. 

" Finally, — to close and crown this series of striking contrasts 
which the Germany of the nineteenth century presents to the 
Germany of the sixteenth and seventeenth, — I need but point to 
the extraordinary coalition which has, within these few years, 
taken place between the two principal creeds into which the 
Reformation, in its first progress, branched. Of all Churches, 
perhaps, that ever existed, the most fiercely intolerant has been 
the Lutheran,* — not only in persecuting, imprisoning, and even 
excluding from salvation, as heretics,"}" the members of her sis- 
ter Church, the Reformed or Calvinist, but also in nurturing 
within her own bosom such a nest of discord J as had never be- 
fore been engendered by theologic hate, — Ultra Lutherans, and 
Melancthonians refusing each other the rites of communion and 
burial, § — Flacianists against Strigelians, — Osiandrians against 
Stancarians,|| — each of these parties hating its opposite as in- 
veterately as all agreed in detesting their common enemy the 
Calvinists. Yet this very Church, born, as it was, and nursed 
in discord, till strife seemed the very element, the principle, of 
its existence, has, within these few years (thanks to the becalm- 

may be removed, without scruple, from religious instruction, as being a new 
doctrine, without foundation, and contrary to reason ; but it must be done 
with great circumspection, that weak Christians may not take scandal at it, 
.or a pretext to reject all religion !" 

* " De toutes les sectes du Christianisme," says Rousseau, with just se- 
verity, "la Lutherienne me paroit la plus inconsequente. Elle a reuni 
comme a plaisir contre elle seule toutes les objections qu'elles se font l'une a 
l'autre. Elle est en particulier intolerante comme l'Eglise Eomaine ; mais 
le grand argument de celle-ci lui manque ; elle est intolerante sans savoir 
pourquoi." — Lettres de la Montague. 

| Thus a learned Professor, Fecht, in a work, "De Beatitudine Mor- 
tuorum in Domino," expressed his opinion that all but Lutherans, and cer- 
tainly all. the Reformed, were excluded from salvation. But to Lutherans he 
asserted that the term der selige," or " died in the Lord," ought in all 
cases to be applied, even though they had led notoriously ungodly and profli- 
gate lives, and on their death-beds had not given the least indication of 
repentance. — See Mr. Pusexfs Historical Inquiry. 

\ Among the instances of Lutherans persecuted by Lutherans, I shall only 
enumerate Strigel, imprisoned three years for maintaining that man was not 
merely passive in the work of his conversion, — Hardenberg, deposed and 
banished from Saxony for only approximating to the reformed doctrines on 
the Communion, — Peucer, Melancthon's son-in-law, imprisoned ten years, 
for espousing the cause of his father-in-law's followers, and Cracau, put to 
the torture for the same Anti-Lutheran offence. 

§ The origin of this controversy was the extravagant assertion of Flacius, 
that " original sin was the substance of human nature." 

|] By Osiarider it wa3 maintained that our justification through Christ was 
derived from his divine nature solely, while Stancarus ascribed the work of 
justification to his human nature alone. Thus did these " graceless bigots 
fight," — for ever in extremes, and for ever in the dark. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



193 



ing power of Rationalism) sunk quietly into coalition with its 
ancient foe. and now shares amicably with it the same temples, 
the same ministers, and the same Sacraments !* 

" To the eternal glory of Reason, the world now beholds the 
edifying spectacle of two religions once so mutually hostile, that 
each would have freely granted salvation to be attainable any 
where but within the hated pale of the other, now quiescently 
subsiding into a partnership of belief, — with creeds simplified, it 
is true, on both sides, to so rational an extent, as to leave them, 
even were they so disposed, but few dogmas to dispute about,| 
and, with that best and sole guard against dissension and craft, 
a freedom from all dark and uncharitable mysteries. 

" To Zwingli who, both by the example and the rule which 
he held out in applying the touchstone of common sense to the 
mystery of the Eucharist, was the main source, I again repeat, 
of all the consequences I hav« been describing, we are indebted 
for other bold lights, in the same adventurous track, which would 
yet more fully illustrate the working of his principle, but to 
which the extent this Lecture already has reached, permits me 
barely to allude. The gloomy dogma of Original Sin, — an evi- 
dent graft from Manicheism, — was among the doctrines discarded 
by this enlightened Reformer,^: who, in rejecting the notion that 

* One of the compromises by which this strange union has been effected 1 , 
is not a little curious. The Lutherans had been accustomed, like the Catho- 
lics, to use a small wafer, ichole ; the Calvinists bread, which they broke. 
They now use, in common, a large Lutheran wafer, which is broken, like 
the Calvinistic bread. We have here a type, if I may so say, of the fate of 
German Protestantism altogether. It was respecting the substance in the 
Eucharist that these Churches first fell into variance, and now a mere com- 
promise as to the wafer, has been sufficient to bring them together again ! 
\\ ell might the Abbe de la Alennais say, " Le Protestantisme fatigue s'est 
tndormi sur des ruines." 

f As a confirmation of all that is here stated by the Professor, I give the 
following passage from an English traveller, Mr. Jacob, who, in speaking ol 
the reconciliation in question, says, "This union is said to have spread still 
wider a spirit of indifference upon sacred subjects. The distinguishing tenet 
of the Lutherans, and that which is contained in their Symbolic Books, to 
which the clergy profess adherence, is the doctrine of the Real presence ot 
the body and blood of Christ, in the bread and wine, in the Lord's Supper. 
This tenet, though it has ever been the profession of the Lutheran Church, 
has long been abandoned by almost the whole of its ministers. The Re- 
formed or Calvinistic ministers, had, like their brethren of the Lutheran partv. 
little to give up. Their distinguishing tenets of predestination, election, per- 
severance, and impelling grace, were passed over in their public services, as 
obsolete dogmas never to be introduced, and it was generally understood 
that, for a century past, they have been scarcely entertained by any con- 
siderable number of the clergy ; so that the union which has been effected is 
not imagined to have had any other practical effect, but that of making the 
common people think religious worship, under any form, as much a matter of 
indifference as this union, thus easily effected, shows that different opinions 
are to their teachers." 

X He held it to be a misfortune, a malady of man's nature, — not sin, nor 
M 17 



194 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Baptism washes away sin, denied that there is any original sir. 
to wash away. As on the existence, too, of this innate corrup- 
tion, depends the necessity of a Redemption, we can little wonder 
at his adopting a scheme of Salvation so comprehensive, that, 
according to his view, the great heroes and sages of Paganism 
are no less admissible to the glories of Heaven than St. Paul 
himself. In his Confession of Faith addressed, but a short time 
before his death, to Francis I, not content with assuring thai 
monarch that he might expect to meet, in the assembly of the 
Blessed, such illustrious ancients as Socrates, the Scipios, the 
Catos, grouped, side by side, with Moses, Isaiah, and the Virgin 
Mary, he announces also, as part of the company, the Demi-gods 
Hercules and Theseus, and at the head of all places Adam and 
Jesus Christ himself. 

"I have already intimated that, during his lifetime, some 
suspicion attached to Zwingli of being less orthodox, on the sub- 
ject of the Trinity, than were most of his brother Reformers ;* 
and though he succeeded, as we are told, in vindicating himself, 
on this point, to Luther, 1 am inclined to believe, from the little 
ceremony with which, in so solemn a document, he classes the 
Saviour undistinguishingly with all this motley group of Saints 
and Demi-gods, that the suspicion of his heterodoxy, on the sub- 
ject of Christ's divinity, was not without foundation. In truth, to 
a mind far less penetrating than that of Zwingli, it could not fail 
to have been self-evident, that the very same motive and princi- 
ple on which he had acted in explaining away Transubstantiation 
— namely, that all which is unintelligible should be held to be 
incredible, — would lead, with equal certainty, to the overturn of 
the no less inexplicable enigma of the Trinity. It was on these 

incurring the penalty of damnation. " Colligimus ergo peccatum originate 
niorbum quidem esse, qui tamen per se non culpabilis est, nec damnationis 
pcsnam inferre potest." — Traclat. de Baptism. 

* Calvin, too, was accused of heterodoxy, on this subject, by the Luther- 
ans, and a book was published byHutter, one of their most violent divines, to 
prove that Calvin " had corrupted, in a detestable . manner, the most illus- 
trious passages and testimonies in the Holy Scriptures, relating to the most 
glorious Trinity, to the Godhead of Christ, and the Holy Spirit." The 
grounds of this Charge against Calvin are to be found in the view taken by 
that Reformer of some of those prophecies and types of the Hebrew Scriptures 
which are, by most Christians, regarded as having reference to Christ, but 
which Calvin, anticipating the system of the Rationalists, applied solely to 
the temporal condition and prospects of the Jews. In noticing this mode of 
interpretation (which Professor Scratchenbach might have cited, among his 
instances of the rationalizing spirit of Protestanism) Mosheim thus speaks : — 
" It must, however, be observed, that some of these interpreters, and more 
especially Calvin, have been sharply censured for applying to the temporal 
state and circumstances of the Jews, several prophecies that point to the 
Messiah, and to the Christian dispensation in the most evident manner, and 
thus removing some of the most sinking arguments in favor of the divinity cf 
the Gospel." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



105 



grounds that the latter doctrine was attacked afterwards so suc- 
cessfully, by Socinus ; and the two strong holds of mystery having 
thus fallen before the summons of Reason, all those other inroads 
into the ancient territory of Faith, which it has been my object 
to point out to you, have followed naturally in succession." 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

Reflections. — Letter from Miss * *. — Marriages of the Reformers. — CEco- 
lampadius. — Bucer. — Calvin and his Ideletta. — Luther and his Catharine 
de Bore. — Their Marriage Supper — Hypocrisy of the Reformers. — Chal- 
lenge at the Black Bear. — The War of the Sacrament. 

Those among my readers to whom, from their previous un- 
acquaintance with the subject, the picture that has just been 
given of the present state of Protestantism in Germany, comes 
with the same shock of novelty, as it did, I confess, to myself, 
can alone form any adequate notion of the wonder, the incre- 
dulity, with which I listened to that summing up of the Protest- 
ants' creed of unbelief, (as it is hardly a solecism to call it,) which 
has been reported faithfully, as it fell from my instructor's own 
lips, in the concluding portion of his Lecture. 

I had, it is true, been sufficiently prepared by my knowledge 
of the earlier heresies, — those elder branches of the dark family 
of Simon Magus, the Valentinians, Marcionites, &c, — to expect 
all possible freaks of belief from a free, uncontrolled range of 
Reason through the Scriptures. But that I should find ?*>?belief 
resulting, to such an extent, from the same license of private 
judgment, was, though an equally natural consequence, by no 
means so clearly foreseen by me ; nor could I help now calling 
to mind the remark of a clever Protestant writer, — a remark 
which, when first I happened to light upon it, struck me as bor- 
dering on the extravagant, but to whose truth, the fate that has 
attended Christianity, in the very father -land of the Reformation, 
bears but too awful a testimony, — namely, that "the first step 
of separation from the Church of Rome was the first step to in- 
fidelity."* 

So incredible, however, did some of the details of this new 
negative code of Christianity appear to me, that I resolved to 
satisfy myself, by direct reference to some of the Professor's au- 

* Extracts from the Diary of a Lover of Literature. — The intelligent author 
of this work, Mr. Green, lived in hahits of intimacy with some of the most 
eminent men of the last half century. It is in speaking of Dryden's poem of 
" the Hind and the Panther" that he says, "His Hind demonstrates — what 
I have often thought, but tremble to express — that the first step of separation 
from the Church of Rome was the first to Infidelity." 



196* TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 

thorities, as to how far dependance might be placed on his verv 
startling statements. With this view, declining, for a time, the 
honor of any further lectures from him, I applied myself sedu- 
lously to the study of all such Rationalist writers as were likely 
to aid me in forming a judgment respecting the nature of their 
system. 

In this task, however, I was, before long, interrupted by a 
letter from Miss * *, in which, mixing up, as usual, sentiment 
and theology together, she entreated, as a special favor, that I 
would collect, for her Album, all such particulars as were on 
record, respecting " those heaven-favored women who, in the 
first dawn of the Reformation, enjoyed the enviable distinction 
of being the wives of Reformers, and thus participating in the 
affection and sweetening the toils of the first laborers in that great 
and most goodly vineyard." 

Though my own romance on the subject had considerably 
abated, I lost no time in performing, to the best of my ability, 
this commission of my fair friend, whose exceeding zeal in all 
matters of theology, (whatever might be her knowledge of them,) 
entitled her fully to the eulogy passed by Bossuet on a learned 
Religieuse of his time : " II y a bien de la theol&gie sous la robe 
de cette femme." 

Beginning with QEcolampadius, the early friend of Erasmus,* 
who was the first priest that took advantage of that era of liberty 
to provide himself with the lay luxury of a handsome young wife, 
I proceeded regularly through the list of all those who were in- 
duced to follow in so inviting a path. " QEcolampadius," says 
Erasmus, in one of his letters, "has taken to himself a wife — a 
pretty young girl ; he wants, I suppose, to mortify himself. Some 
call Lutheranism a tragedy ; but I call it a comedy, where the 
distress generally ends in a wedding." 

Even the stern Calvin was not proof against this " primrose 
path of dalliance ;" but, on the death of one M. de Bure, an 
Anabaptist, whom he had converted, kindly followed up this spi 
ritual service by espousing his widow."]* 

Martin Bucer, who had been originally a Dominican friar, no 
sooner cast off his frock than he set about marrying, like the 
rest, — " et meme plus que les autres," says Bossuet, as it was 
the friar's good fortune to become the husband of no less than 
three ladies in succession ; one of whom (still more to heighten 

* For the share which Erasmus was supposed to have taken in preparing 
the way for the Reformation, the Lutherans acknowledged their gratitude, 
by having a picture painted, " in which Luther andHutten were represented 
carrying the ark of God, and Erasmus dancing before them with all his 
might." — Ciilique de l\2pol. d'Erasme, quoted by Jortin. 

* The name of the lady was Ideletta. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



197 



the zest of wrong) had been a nun.* This extreme readiness 
to marry, — more especially on the part of ecclesiastic proselytes, 
— was regarded as a proof of heartiness in the cause of religious 
reform ; while, on the other hand, any antiquated scruple at the 
thoughts of violating the most solemn vows, was held in suspicion, 
as a symptom of still lurking Popery.*j* 

With this sort of evidence of good Protestantism, Martin Bucer 
was, as we have seen, amply provided ; and one of his wives had 
been even more of a pluralist, in matrimony, than himself. By 
a singular run of good luck, too, this lady's marriages lay all in 
the Reforming line ; — her first husband having been Ludovicus 
Cellarius ; her second, the famous CEcolampadius, who had been 
a Brigittine monk ; her third, Wolfgang Capito, one of the most 
active of the Reformers ; and her fourth, the Dominican friar, 
and helping Apostle of the English Reformation, Martin Bucer. 
Knowing that the career of this fair promoter of Protestantism 
would be sure to interest my friend, Miss * *, exceedingly, 1 
took care to set it forth as much in detail as my materials would 
allow of: pointing out particularly to her notice the sentimental 
incident of CEcolampadius's widow becoming also, in succession, 
the widow of his two most esteemed colleagues, Capito and Bucer. 

Nor was the liberality of these Reformers, respecting mar 
riage, confined solely to their own particular cases, but extended 
even more indulgently to the matrimonial propensities of others ; 
and while three wives in succession were deemed by Bucer a 
sufficient privilege for himself, he allowed to the Landgrave of 
Hesse, in consideration of his great services to Protestantism, the 
right, somewhat less customary among Christians, of having two 
wives at a time. The Memorial addressed by this Prince to 
the Reformers, stating his reasons for requiring such a luxury, 
and the Dispensation granted, in consequence, signed by Luther, 
Melancthon, and Bucer,:): in which they allow to this great pa- 

* The nun is said to have borne him thirteen children. "C'eut et6 
dommage," says Bayle, " qu'une fille si propre a multiplier fut restee dans 
le couvent." 

f "Ce que M. de Meaux observe qu'en ce tems-la le manage 6toit une 
recommendation dans le parti, n'est pas entitlement faux ; car il est certain 
qu'un ecclesiastique, quine se seroit point marie, eut fait naitre des soupcons 
qu'il n'avait pas r£nonce" au dogme dela loi du Celibat. Je crois que Bucer 
insinua cette raison a Calvin lorsqu'il le pressa de se marier." — Bayle. So 
much was this the case at that period, that the Visitors appointed in the 
reign of Edward the Sixth, exhorted all ecclesiastics to marry, as a sure sign 
of their abjuration of Popery. 

{ He assured them that a second wife was quite necessary to his con- 
science, and that he would thereby be enabled " to live and die more gaily 
for the cause of the Gospel !" In Bossuet (liv. 6) and Bayle (art. Luther) 
the reader will find all the particulars of this most disgraceful transaction, 
which, from the secrecy with which it was managed by the parties, remained 
for a long period unknown, till, at last, the publication of the curious docu- 

17* 



198 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



tron of their faith the additional wife he requires, form together 
as curious specimens of the morality of a religion of reason as 
an inquirer into the history of such creeds could desire. 

But the great hero and heroine of my " Loves of the Reform- 
ers," were the mighty Martin himself, and his fair Catharine de 
Bore. Commencing from the memorable Good Friday, u lien 
this lady, with eight other nuns, escaped, under the care of Leon- 
ard Koppen, from her convent,* I showed how early Luther 
evinced that strong interest in her fate which led eventually to 
their union. For, not only did he defend Koppen's achievement, 
in carrying off the nine nuns, but even compared itj- to that of 
Christ himself, in carrying away the Saints captive to Satan. 

In tracing the history of the destined wife of Luther through 
the interval between this elopement and her marriage, I took 
care to avoid even an allusion to any of those scandalous and, as 
it would seem, false stories related by Maimbourg, Varillas, and 
others, respecting her conduct among the young students of Wit- 
tenberg. The curious circumstances, however, leading imme- 
diately to the marriage, I was enabled to give authentically as 
stated in those MSS. left by Luther's friend, Amsdorf, to which 
Seckendorf had access. From these it appears that Miss Catha- 
rine had, in a conversation with Amsdorf, complained that it 
was Luther's intention to marry her, against her will, to Doctor 
Glacius. She, therefore, begged of Amsdorf, knowing on what 
intimate terms he lived with Luther, to try and prevail upon his 
friend to choose some other husband for her ; adding, that she 
was ready, at a minute's notice, to marry either Amsdorf 01 
Luther himself, but, on no account, Doctor Glacius. J 

merits connected with it, by the Elector Palatine, Charles Lewis, revealed the 
whole to the world. The motives of the three leading Reformers, concerned in 
it, for this most profligate concession, are thus shrewdly touched on by Bayle ; 
who, after giving some extracts from the Landgrave's Memorial, or Instruc- 
tion, continues, "II joignit a tout cela je ne sai quelles menaces et quelles 
promesses, qui donnerent a penser a ses Casuistes ; car il y a beaucoup d'appa- 
rence que si un simple gentUhomme les eut consultes sur un pare.il fait il tfeid 
rien obtenu d'eaux.. On peut done s'imaginer raisonnablement quails furent 
de petite foi : Us n'eurent pas la confiance qiCUs devoient avoir aux promesses de 
Jesus Christ ; ils craignirent que si la Reformation d'Alkmagne n'^toit s«u- 
tenue par les Princes qui en faisoient profession, elle ne fut etouff&e." 

* The example of these nuns was followed by another batch, consisting of 
double the number, who, soon after, made their escape from the Monastery 
of Wedersteten. 

j It is but fair to say that the reporter of this blasphemy is Cochlaeus, who, 
from his exceeding violence against Luther, must be regarded as rather sus- 
picious testimony. The following are the words in this writer : — " Felicem 
raptorem sicut Christus raptor erat in mundo quando per mortem suam 

et quidem opportunissimo tempore in Pascha quo Christus suorum 

quoque captivam duxit captivitatem." 

X Venit Catherina ad Nicolaum Amsdorffium, conqueriturque se de con 
silio Lutheri D. Glacio contra voluntatem suam nuptiis locandam : scire se 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



199 



On this hint the Great Reformer spake ; and, with a rapidity 
unexampled, (as if the vows pledged to keep them asunder but 
made them more impatient to come together) — Miss Catharine 
de Bore became, almost on the instant, Madame Luther. With- 
out a single hint of the matter to any of his friends, he invited 
a party to supper, consisting of the bride, a priest, a lawyer, and 
a painter, — the last attending professionally, as well as the others, 
being summoned to take the fair Catharine's portrait,* — and in 
this apostolical manner was solemnized a marriage which, for a 
time, filled the ranks of Protestantism with dismay. 

The deep concern of his friend, Melancthon, at this unsea- 
sonable event — his own consciousness of the shame and humilia- 
tion he had incurred, by a step which, as he himself bitterly 
said, would, he hoped, " make angels laugh and all the devils 
weep,"]*" — the reaction that followed so closely upon this feeling 
of degradation, and the violent effort by which, regaining his 
own esteem, he soon succeeded in persuading himself that, after 
all, the finger of Providence was manifest in the whole affair, 
and it was " God himself that had suggested to him to marry 
that nun, Catharine de Bore"~|: — all these various struggles be. 
tween conscience and passion afforded me scope for such alter- 
nations of light and shadow as, in the Memoir of a wedded Monk 
and Nun, could not fail to be turned strikingly to account. 

To give a domestic interest, too, to the story, I took care to 
mix up with it a number of conjugal details, showing how hap- 
pily, through all the war of creeds, this holy menage went on, 

Lutherum familiarissime uti Amsdorffio ; itaque rogare ad quaevis alia con- 
silia Lutherum vocet. Vellet Lutherus, vellet Amsdoi ffius se paratam cum 
alterutro honestum mire matrimonium, — cum D. Glacio nullo modo. — 
Seckendorf. Comment, de Lutheranismo. This whole plan does much credit 
to the ingenuity of Miss Catharine, who was already well aware how much 
Luther admired her. There had, indeed, from the disphvy and notoriety of 
the Reformer's fondness for her, arisen rumors not vpfy creditable to either 
of the parties. To these rumors he himself alludes, in one of his letters, — 
"os obstruxi," he says, " infamantibus me cum Catharina Borana" — and 
his warm advocate, Seckendorf, states, without any reserve, that " he had 
wished exceedingly for the girl, and used to call her his Catharine" — "Optime 
enim cupiebat virgini et suam vocare Catharinam solebat." 

* The name of this painter was Carnachius, and an engraving from the 
best of his portraits of Catharine, was prefixed by M. Mayer, to his Disser- 
tation " de Catharina, Lutheri conjuge," for the express purpose of clearing 
Luther from the imputation of having married a pretty woman. 

f Sic me vilem et contemptum his nuptiis feci, ut angelos ridere et omnes 
daamones flere sperem. — Epist. ad Spalat. 

X Dominus me subitb cdiaque cogitantem conjecit mire in cemjugium cum 
Catharina Borensi moniali ilia. — Epist. ad Winces. Line. Even Melancthon, 
too, brouglii himself to think (or, at least, to say) that it was possible there 
might be " something hidden and divine" under this marriage : — " Isto enim 
sub negotio fortasse aliquid occulti et quiddam divinius subest!" — Epist. ad 
Camerar. Can infatuation or hypocrisy — for it must be one or the other — 
go farther ? 

I 



200 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



and how much attached to his " girl," as he fondly called her,* 
the great Reformer continued to the last. With her, indeed, was 
always associated in his mind whatever he considered most pre- 
cious and sacred ; nor could he more satisfactorily to himself 
express his ardent admiration of St. Paul's Epistle to the Gala- 
tians, (his favorite portion of all Scripture,) than by saving that, 
" he had wedded himself to that Epistle, and that it was his 
Catharine de Bore."f 

The reader has by this time, I trust, come to know me some- 
what too well to suppose that, light as may have been the tone 
in which I dwelt on these details, I was at all insensible to their 
true and gross nature, or could feel otherwise than deeply dis- 
gusted at the scenes of vulgar self-indulgence and nauseous hy- 
pocrisy which this whole drama, to a near observer of the chief 
actors in it, exhibits. It was, indeed, with some difficulty, I 
contrived to hide, under a thin surface of pleasantry, (such as 
any other eyes than those of my learned instructress would have 
seen through,) the feeling of loathing with which I traced these 
mock Evangelists through their career, — with which I followed 
them to their homes, and through all their haunts and habits, and 
saw them come flushed from their " Table-talk," and their thrice- 
transmitted wives, to tread dow r n, like dogs and swine, the " holy 
things," and " pearls" of the Faith. 

The historian Hume has truly characterized the first Re- 
formers as " fanatics" and " bigots ;" but with no less justice, 
might he have added, that they were (with one exception, per- 
hapsj) the coarsest hypocrites ;§ men, who, while professing the 

* In boasting that the " wise men" of his party, who were so angry at his 
marriage, had been themselves forced to acknowledge the finger of God in 
the event, he thus expresses himself : — Vehementur irritantur sapientos inter 
nostras r rem coguntur Dei fateri, sed persona? larva tam mege quam puellae 
illos dementat. — Lutheri Epist. ap Seckend. 

f Epistola ad Galatas est mea Epistola cui me despondi — est mea Catha- 
rina de Bora. 

X The one exception here made by my friend can be no other, of course, 
than Melancthon ; yet, it would be difficult, on considering the career of this 
amiable, but most irresolute man, to acquit him wholly of, at least, the dupli- 
city of disguising his true opinions and lending the sanction of his countenance 
to measures which he disapproved. The sole circumstance of his upholding, 
in public, as correct documents of faith, both the Confession and the Apology, 
which he yet, in his private letters, mourns over, as containing errors and 
obscurities which it was most essential to amend, is, in itself, so culpable a 
sacrifice to the headlong spirit of party, as nothing but the remorse which he 
himself felt for it, can at all palliate or atone. It is true, his position was 
most trying ; and but too aptly did he compare himself to " Daniel among the 
lions," as never was gentle spirit surrounded by such uncongenial associates. 
But his approval of the atrocious crime of the burning of Servetus — how is 
this to be palliated? It was but in character for such men as Bucer and Farol 
to demand that the doubter of the Trinity should " have his bowels pulled 
out," should " die ten thousand deaths ;" — -but Melancthon ! 

§ To this charge Bucer himself, the most hypocritical of the whole band, 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



201 



most high-flown sanctity in their writings, were, in their con- 
duct, brutal, selfish, and unrestrainable ; who, though pretending, 
in matters of faith, to adopt reason as their guide, were, in all 
things else, the slaves of the most vulgar superstition ; and who, 
wilh the boasted right of judgment for ever on their lips, passed 
their lives in a course of mutual crimination and persecution ; 
and transmitted the same warfare as an heir-loom to their de- 
scendants. Yet, " these be thy Gods," oh Protestantism ! — these 
the coarse idols, which . Heresy has set up in the niches of the 
Saints and Fathers of old, and whose names, like those of all 
former such idols,* are worn, like brands, upon the foreheads of 
their worshippers. 

How any Protestant that has ever examined, even but slightly, 
into the disgraceful history of that long series of wranglings, 
equivocations and frauds, which the attempt to understand, or 
rather to mystify, each other, on the one single doctrine of the 
Eucharist, gave rise to among the Reformers, can be content to 
have received his faith, at the hands of innovators at once so 
double-dealing and so clumsy, is to me a marvel unspeakable. 
The very commencement of this Sacramentarian warfare resem- 
bled far more the preliminaries of a horse-race, than the solemn 
preparation for a controversy by which the faith of millions yet 
unborn was to be influenced. " I defy you," said Luther, haugh- 
tily, to Carlostadt, " to write against me on the Real Presence ; 
and will even give you this gold florin, if you will undertake to 
do so." In saying thus, Luther took from his pocket a florin, 
which Carlostadt accepted and deposited in his own. They 
then shook hands on the challenge, and swallowing down a 
bumper to each other's healths, the War of the Sacrament was 
thus, in the true German style, declared. f 

The scene of this memorable interview was at the Black Bear, 
where Luther lodged ; and in such manner was it that the inef- 
fable and adorable Mystery, which the Saints of other days knelt 

pleaded guilty. In a letter written to Calvin, during the victorious career of 
Charles V, he says, " God has punished r us fen' the injury which we have done 
to his name by our long and most mischievous hypocrisy." 

* From die very beginning of the Christian church, this adoption of names 
derived from men, — such as Marcionites, Arians, Donatists, Lutherans, Cal- 
vinists, &c, has invariably been the badge of heretical strife and schism ; 
some saying that they are of Paul, others that they are of Apollos, and others 
that they are of Cephas. "The Apostles," says Ephrem ofEdessa, "gave no 
names, and when it is done, there is a departure from their rule." How 
aptly may the words of St. Augustin to the Donatists be applied by a Catho- 
lic of the present day to that swarm of Calvinists, Arminians, Socinians, &c, 
who are opposed to him. — " I am called Catholic, you are wilh Donahis." — 
Ego Catholica dicor et vos dc Donati parte. — Psalm, contra part. Donali. 

f Luther. T. 2, Jen. 447. Calix. Judic. n. 49. Hospin. 2 par. ad ann. 1524. 
See Note at the end of the volume. 



202 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



to, as the " hidden manna" of salvation, " the wisdom of God in 
a mystery," was started, as fit game to be hunted down, by this 
pair of challengers at the Black Bear ! 

So much for the decency of those new apostles of Christian- 
ity ; — for their consistency, tolerance, good faith, and wisdom, 
let the whole history of that most disreputable controversy speak. 
Tn the very first attempt of the Lutherans at a regular Confession 
of Faith, no less than six different explanations of their doctrine 
respecting the Eucharist (each announced as positively for the 
last time of explaining) followed in quick succession ; while the 
counter explanations, on the Sacramentarian side, were almost 
equally numerous. 

Then came the wily and tortuous Bucer, as a mediator be- 
tween the parties, — a mediator, by affecting to agree with both, 
— a reconciler, by misrepresenting each to the other ; now in- 
ducing Luther to think that Calvin concurred in a Real Presence 
of Christ's body, while Calvin meant but some vague presence 
to the eye of faith, and in the sky ; now persuading Calvin that 
Luther admitted the substance present to be spiritual, while, on 
the contrary, Luther held, as do the Catholics, that the miracu- 
lous presence in the Sacrament is spiritual only as to the man- 
ner, but corporeal as to the substance. 

By such tricks and evasions did Bucer, — and, it is painful to 
add, Melancthon, — succeed in maintaining, for a time, a false 
and feverish truce between the parties. But arts so gross could 
not long continue to deceive ; all compromise was found to be 
hollow and hopeless, and, at last, the three great Eucharistic 
factions, the Lutheran, the Calvinian, and the Zwinglian, all 
broke loose in their respective directions of heresy, — each branch 
again subdividing itself into new factious distinctions, under the 
countless names of Panarii, Accidentarii, Corporarii, Arrabo- 
narii, Tropistse, Metamorphistae, Iscariotistae, Schwenkenfeldians, 
&c. &c. &c. till, to such an extent did the caprice of Private 
Judgment carry its freaks, on this one solemn subject, that an 
author of Bellarmine's time (as that great man informs us) counted 
no less than two hundred different opinions on the words " This 
Is my body !" 

But the whole history of that period abounds with lessons full 
of melancholy warning ; nor can any thing more strikingly im- 
press us with the infatuation or ignorance of those persons who 
still cry out for " the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the 
Bible," than thus to see that the very men who first raised that 
cry, and who held the Bible to be all-sufficient for the discovery 
of divine truth, could yet fall into all this fierce and interminable 
discord about the meaning of a text consisting of but four simple 
words ! 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



203 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

Blasphemies of the Rationalists. — Sources of infidelity in Germany. — Ab- 
surdity of some of the Lutheran doctrines.— Impiety of those of Calvin. — 
Contempt for the authority of the Fathers. — Doctor Damman. — Decline of 
Calvinism. . 

It required iiO very long or deep study of the chief oracles of 
Rationalism to convince me fully that, in the Professor's descrip- 
tion of the present awful state of Protestantism in Germany, he 
had by no means exaggerated or over-colored his picture. On 
the contrary, I found that his statements, however incredible they 
had at first appeared, were but a faint and diluted representation 
of the truth ; and that, while, from the fear perhaps of giving 
alarm to so mere a neophyte in the school of Rationalism, he 
concealed from me more than half of the impieties of the system, 
he had also, for the honor of his supreme sovereign, Reason, 
thrown a veil over all its feebleness and its folly. 

Had I wanted any thing, indeed, to prove, to my fullest con- 
viction, how wholly misplaced is reasoning, on a subject where, 
if feeling and faith be not alive, all else is " of the earth, earthy," 
I should have found it in the pitiful exhibition which these men, 
otherwise so acute and learned, afford in their attempts to bring 
down the grand and awful wonders of Christianity to the level 
of their own finite and low-thoughted reason ; nor between the 
example which they present of irreverent boldness, on such sub- 
jects, and the most stupid and superstitious acquiescence under 
belief, is there much more to choose than between the ass of the 
Egyptians, carrying gravely the Mysteries, and the same ass, in 
a fit of liveliness, trampling them clumsily under his feet. 

With the more plausible features of that mere phantom of 
Christianity, which still wears the abused name of Protestantism, 
in Germany, the reader already has become acquainted, from 
the sketch given of its rise and progress by M. Scratchenbach ; 
and. to go into details of the profane excess to which the system 
has been carried, would be a task, even had I left myself space 
for it, neither agreeable nor useful. To give some notion, how- 
ever, of the tricks, in the way of theology and exegesis, which 
Fancy, under the demure mask of Reason, can play, I shall here 
string together, at hazard, a few of the leading results at which 
these inquirers into " the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing 
but the Bible," have arrived. 

In the Old Testament, the history of the Creation, of Paradise, 
and of Adam and Eve, are nothing but allegories >r mythi. The 
Pentateuch, whtch may be looked upon as a sort ol ' Theocratic 
Epic," was not written by Moses, but compiled at a i.iuch later 



204 



TRAVELS Ue AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



period ; and Jehovah was but the Household God, or Fetiche 
of the family of Abraham, which David, Solomon, and the pro 
phets, afterwards promoted to the rank of Creator of all things. 
It is plain that Deuteronomy could not have been the work of 
Moses, nor Ecclesiastes that of Solomon, as in each case it would 
suppose the author to have related his own decease. The Psalms 
were a sort of Anthology to which David and other writers con. 
tributed ; and the productions of the chief contributor are thus 
criticised by a grave theologian, Augusti : " David's muse takes 
no high flight, but he succeeds best in Songs and Elegies." By 
critics of the same school, Esther is pronounced to be a Histor, 
ical Romance, while Ruth, they say, was written for the purpose 
of proving David to have sprung from a good family, and the 
story of Jonah is but a repetition of the fable of Hercules swal- 
lowed by a sea-monster. As to the Prophets, the learned Eichorn 
allows them the credit of having been sharp, clever men, w r ho 
saw further into futurity than their contemporaries ; while others, 
assigning to them a decided political character, " make them 
out," says Mr. Rose, " to be demagogues and Radical Reform- 
ers." The Prophecy, in Isaiah, of the Fall of Babylon, was 
evidently written by some one who was present at the siege ; and 
the predictions, supposed to refer to Christ, in the same rhap- 
sodies, relate to the fortunes and ultimate fate of the race of 
Prophets in general.* 

In the New Testament, the miraculous birth of Christ is to be 
ranked in the class of mythologic fictions, along with the stories 
of the incarnations of the Indian Gods, — and more especially that 
of Buddha's generation from a Virgin, who had conceived him 
by a rainbow. The motive of Christ for giving himself out for 
a Prophet was that he might thereby have more weight, as a 
moral teacher; and, in like manner, he was induced afterwards 
to personate the Messiah,*]" from the notion entertained by his 
admirers, that he was that promised personage. According to 
Wieland, Jesus Christ was a noble Jewish magician,"]: who, on 
his own part, never conceived the least idea of being the founder 

* "There is a book by Scherer, (a clergyman in Hesse Darmstadt,) in 
which he represents the prophets of the Old Testament as so many Indian 
jugglers, who made use of the pretended inspiration of Moses and the reve- 
lations of the prophets to deceive the people." — Rose's State of Protestantism 
in Germany. 

f Jesum personam Messiae suscepisse. — De Wette. 

| A Prussian Rationalist has even improved (in the retrograde direction) 
upon this notion of Wieland. "II existe," says Stapfer, " un livre public en 
Prusse, dans des intentions pieuses, et dont le titre dit plus queles plus longs 
devellopemens historiques ne pourroient apprendre a ceux qui aiment a 
douter encore de l'empire des opinions Rationalistes en Allemagne ; le voici — 
Jesus Christ fut-U autre chose quhm simple rabbin de campagne Juifl" — Ar- 
chives du Christ misrne. 



IN SEARCH OF A. RELIGION. 



205 



of a Religion, and whose Institute only assumed the form of re 
ligion by time. Much of the obscurity, it is said, in which the 
doctrines of the New Testament are involved, is owing to the 
stupidity and superstition of the Apostles, who misunderstood, in 
many instances, the language of their master,* and whose gross 
misconception of his promises, as to a future kingdom, involved 
him in difficulties with his followers, from which he saw no other 
way of extricating himself honorably but by death. f 

It is painful thus to repeat, — even for the purpose of de- 
nouncing them, — profanations and blasphemies at once so daring 
and so frivolous. But a Reverend Protestant has not shrunk 
from recording them in his pages, and a Catholic has, at least, 
one less reason for being ashamed of them. 

The original source of all this flood of irreligion, by which 
Protestantism has been swept away in Germany, and even 
Christianity herself seen her " foundations overflown," has, in 
the foregoing lecture of my German instructor, been clearly and 
irrefragably pointed out ; nor is he a less valuable authority for 
the true source of the evil, because, by a perversion of moral 
vision, he regards it as a good, and, in the false pride of Illumin 
atism, even glories in results, over which every thinking Chris 
tian, of all sects, must mourn. 

In one respect only can the view taken by the Professor, of 
the causes of this great religious revolution, be considered par- 
tial or imperfect. In the wish to claim for his favorite Zwingli 
the whole honor, as he deems it, of having, by the principle 
which he first applied to the interpretation of Scripture, led the 
way in this desecrating and unchristianizing system, he has 
failed to do justice to the share which both Luther and Calvin 
contributed, in their several ways, to the same lamentable result; 

* Etsi enim Apostolorum innocentiam, integritatem, pietatem, fervorem et 
evdovatacnov ea, qua par est veneratione agnoscimus, dissimulare tamen non 
possumus fuisse eos non solum varus superstitionibus et falsis opinionibus 
imbutos, sed tamen indociles quoque et tardos, ut si Jesus paulo obscuriore 
loquendi genere uteretur, eum prorsus non intelligerent. — De Wette, de Marie 
Jesu Ckristi Expiatoria. 

f Voluit Jesus, veterum prophetarum more, morte sua doctrinae veritatem 
profited, sperans fore ut difncultatibus quibus, se vivo, pressam videbat, 
morte sua superatis, victrix tamer ilia evaderet, et vanis Messiae opinionibus 
destractus, in hominum animos vim suam salutarem exsereret. — De Wette. 
In considering what was the particular reading, adopted by Christ, of a pas- 
sage in Daniel, which he accommodated to himself, this writer coolly discu sses' 
our Saviour's qualifications for the task of interpreting the Old Testament, — 
saying that, though he could not, of course, be expected to know the new 
Grammatico-historical mode of interpretation, still it was impossible he cculd 
be so neglectful of the true meaning of the passage as to understand it in the 
manner attributed to him: — "Is enim in lectione Vet. Testamenti, licet no$~ 
tree exegeseos grammatico-bistoricaj rudis, contextus tamen non adeo negu 
gens esse potuit, ut locum, &c. &c." 

18 



206 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



nor, in showing how Zwingli set the example of undermining 
Christianity by the anti-mysterious and naturalizing cast of hU 
doctrines, has sufficiently pointed out how his brethren of Ge- 
neva and Wittenberg conducted exactly to the same end by the 
absurdity of theirs. . 

We have already seen how revolting were some of those no- 
tions of Luther, which, adopted, as they were, in all the wanton- 
ness of self-will, by himself, descended afterwards, under the 
abused name of doctrines, to his Church. Of one of these, the 
Ubiquity of the human nature of Christ, — an extravagance that 
has no parallel in the whole range of Gnosticism, — its author 
himself had, towards the close of his life, seen reason to be 
ashamed ; and, with his usual caprice, as well in dictating as in 
countermanding doctrines, had, in some of his later writings, 
wholly abandoned the notion. Already, however, had his name 
hallowed even this nonsense to his followers ; — the Ubiquity had 
become a part and parcel of Lutheranism, and, as such, was to 
be maintained and wrangled for with the rest. 

It was, in fact, not as articles of belief, but as badges of party, 
that any of these monstrous extravagances were clung to so ob- 
stinately. Torn up, as was the Lutheran Church, into a mul- 
tiplicity of schism, every such dictum of their founder became 
the Shibboleth of a faction, and the more inconceivably absurd 
was its nature, the more desperate the fidelity with which it was 
defended. That this is no unfair or distorted representation of 
that Church, the pages of Mr. Pusey, — the historian, as he may 
be called, of the Decline- and Fall of German Protestantism, — 
but too sufficiently testify. It is only surprising, indeed, that the 
reaction, in favor of insulted reason, to which, at last, this war 
of wordy sectarianism gave rise, did not much earlier take place, 
and most lamentable that they who, disgusted w r ith this abuse 
of the name of religion, rejected the motley creed from whence 
such discord sprung, did not seek refuge at once in the haven 
of the ancient Church of Christ, whose " peace is as a river," 
instead of breaking off, it is to be feared, irrecoverably, into the 
vague void of Unbelief, — that sea without a shore ! 

The course of the Calvinistic branch of Protestantism in Ger 
many w r as, in many respects, different from that of the Lutheran, 
Owing to their freedom, for a longer period, from fixed formu- 
laries of doctrine, there existed in their Church a far more com. 
prehensive scheme of communion than among the Lutherans ; 
and having less, therefore, of the exclusive spirit of formula rism 
in their theology, they were proportionally more tolerant. They 
had, indeed, a spectacle for ever before them, in the rabid rancor 
of the sister Church towards themselves, w r hich, though insult- 
ing and irritating, was, for the most part, by its outrageous ab- 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



20? 



surdity, far more calculated to inspire disgust than any desire tc 
retaliate. Such an amiable direction had the family feeling be. 
tween these two heresies taken, that, by Lutheran preachers, the 
title of Antichrist was transferred from the Pope-to Calvin, and 
in Lutheran Liturgies one of the petitions was, " Repress the 
Turks, Papists, and Calvinists."* 

But though it may be granted that the Reformed Church, as 
compared with the Lutheran, set an example far more becoming 
a Christian community, there was, on the other hand, in its 
whole spirit and principles, even more deeply laid mischief, and 
a still more unerring source of such demoralizing and Antichris- 
tian consequences as we see exhibited in the present state of 
Continental Protestantism. Not to dwell further on that rule 
of scriptural interpretation, so pliant for all purposes, which Cal- 
vin, alike with Zwingli and Socinus adopted, and which places 
the meaning of God's word at the mercy of man's sense, the 
very foundation of the creed of Calvinism involves notions of a 
Supreme Being the most disturbing, if not fatal to all genuine 
piety. If, as Hooker declares, " the seed of whatever perfect 
virtue groweth from us is a right opinion touching things divine," 
alas for the growth of virtue or charity in those who seek their 
model of " things divine" in the God of the Calvinists, — the 
deliberate preordainer of sin and ruin, — the Author of man's 
existence, temptation, and fall ! " • 

That most ancient and most melancholy of all mysteries, the 
Origin of Evil, must, as long as man suffers and thinks, continue 
to occupy, however needlessly, his mind. But to attempt to 
conjure up doctrine out of such a " mist of darkness," — to spec- 
ulate on the unrevealed decrees of God, and look for light where 
Himself has willed there should be none, is a task presumptu- 
ous as it is shadowy, vain as it is daring ; and which, by mixing 
up the speculations of philosophy with religion, introduces an 
element into the latter which never fails to explode, to its ruin. 
So aware were the Gnostics, in the midst of all their reveries, 
of the danger of holding forth a Supreme God as the author of 
evil, that they had recourse to the supposition of an inferior and 
malevolent Deity, on whom to rest all the responsibility of that 
mas? of moral evil which the more impious Calvinist traces up 
to the one God himself! 

Nor is it merely in the rash impiety of this doctrine that its 
mischief to the cause of Christianity lay, but also in the cori- 

* "In Swedish Pomerania, where there were no Reformed, an- order from 
the local authorities, suspending declamations against them, and erasing from 
the Liturgy the petition, ' Repress the Turks, Papists, and Calvinists,' was 
annulled hy application to Stockholm; and the intermarriage of a Lutheran 
with a Reformed declared inadmissible." — Pwsey, Historical Inquiry. 



208 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



tempt for Christianity's earliest teachers which Calvin's adoption 
of it implied ; he himself having avowed that, on this point, th% 
Fathers of the three first centuries were opposed to him, and hi& 
more violent followers, Gomarus and others, even admitting \\v&\ 
they were unsupported in it by Scripture. 

The whole history, indeed, of the Predestinarian doctrine, from 
its first introduction by St. Augustin, is a subject well worthy 
of study, as enabling us to track the course of so dark an error, 
through all the stages of its progress, growing more and more 
bloated and virulent as it advances, till at last, bursting with Itf 
own venom, it gradually dies away. Such, very nearly, has been 
the course and fate of the dark doctrine of Calvinism. Begin, 
ning, in a comparatively mild form with St. Augustin, — who 
himself had commenced with far other opinions, and was only 
led by the heat of controversy to lay the foundations of Cal- 
vinism,* — it assumed, in the scheme of the Genevese Reformer, 
a more rigid and damnatory shape ; received some gloomier 
touches from his followers, Beza and Zanchius, and from thence 
on, deepening still its hue, as it passed through the hands of the 
fierce Franeker divines, reached the full consummation of its 
blasphemy and absurdity, under the auspices of the well-named 
Doctor Dam-?nan,\ at the memorable Synod of Dort. 

At that point, however, the glory of Calvinism may be said 
to have touched its meridian, and the moment of complete tri- 
umph was but its first step towards decline. Even the Dutch, 
whose divines had principally contributed to this victory over 
common sense, refused, in most instances, to submit to the yoke 
of the victors ; and, with that nimbleness which has ever cha- 
racterized the Proteus, Protestantism, were seen gliding away 
from the grasp of orthodoxy in the various forms of Universalists, 
Serni-Universalists, Supralapsarians, Sublapsarians, — like that 
model of the Reforming Spirit, to which I have just alluded, — 

Nec te decipiat centum mentita figuras, 

Sed preme quicquid erit ; dam quodfuit ante, Reformet. 



* When St. Augustin opposed the Manichseans, (who held with the Cal- 
vinists, that there are souls necessarily wicked,) he advanced doctrines wholly 
different from those which he afterwards took up in opposition to Pelagius • 
and this latter party opinion has been his bequest to future times ; — inflicting 
thereby an injury on Christianity (for even the Catholic Church did not 
wholly escape the infection) far greater than all his labors in her service can 
ever compensate. In rejecting Jansenism — an inoculation of this virus — 
from her Communion, the Church of Rome has got rid of the only slight taint 
of heresy that, in her course, " immortal and unchanged," the Milk-white 
Hind has ever known. 

t This Doctor Damman was one of the secretaries to the Synod, and of 
course an upholder of the high Dort doctrine, that "none of the truly faithful 
can, by any sins, fall from the Grace of God." — Nulli vere lideles per ulla 
peccata possunt ex gratia Dei excidere. — Damman. in Concordia. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



209 



Vi Geneva, the very cradle of all those monstrous doctrines 
which had been now decided, by the Maccoviuses and Dam mans,* 
to be the true Christian and Protestant faith, that reaction which 
has since developed itself so signally, began already to appear ; 
and the same recoil from fanaticism and absurdity which made 
her then almost Arminian, has since, in its further and natural 
operation, made her all but infidel. 

In England, where, at this period, both Court and People were 
casting a "lingering look behind" towards their Mother Church,-)- 
and where the authority, therefore, of the Fathers, (bound up, as 
it is, essentially with Catholicism,) was regarded still with rever- 
ence, a system of doctrine so avowedly opposed as was that of 
Dort to those early oracles of the faith could hope for no very 
favorable reception. From that period, indeed, the Church of 
England may be said, in the words of the ever-memorable Hales,:} 
to have " bid John Calvin good night ;" — and though my Ger- 
man Lecturer, in contrasting Calvin with Luther, assumed that 
the sectaries still bearing the name of the former maintain also 
his doctrines, it will be found that Calvinism, though still far 
from being (like its sister heresy, Lutheranism) extinct, has for 
a long time been shorn of its most baleful beams ; insomuch, that 
for one rigid adherent to the reprobatory branch of the creed of 
Geneva, there are now numbers of professed Calvinists who con- 
fine their belief to the sole doctrine of Election,^ rejecting more 

* Of the frightful opinions of Maccovius, and other Dort theologians, I 
have already given some samples. One of the memorable decisions of this 
Synod was that "the children of unbelievers, dying in their infancy, are repro- 
bate as well as their parents" — Infantes infidelium morientes in infantia 
reprobatos esse statuimus. — Act. Synod. Dord. This humane enactment is 
but a consequence of the same principle on which Predestinarians hold that 
the infants of godly persons are in the covenant of grace, together with their 
parents, and have therein " a federal interest." The following is the im- 
piously familiar manner in which the draft of agreement, as it may be called, 
for this covenant between God and the seed of believers, is drawn up by one 
of the theologians of the sect : — " They (the infants) have true, real and pro- 
per interest and propriety in God. As they are his, so he is theirs. There 
is a mutual propriety and interest in each other. They have God under an 
actual obligation, viz. of his promise, to improve and employ all his attributes for 
their good, benefit and advantage, according, or in a ivay agreeable to the true 
tenor of the covenant, and of the various promises of it. They have a present 
interest in and right to salvation ; and answerably, in case of their death, before 
a forfeiture be made of that their interest and right, they shall infallibly be saved.^ 
Whiston , s Primitive Doct. of Inf. Bap. revived. 

f " I acknowledge," said James I, in a public speech to his Parliament, 
1603, " the Church of Rome to be our Mother Church." 

I This candid and simple-minded man went to Dort a Calvinist, but "at 
the well-pressing," as he himself tells us, "of St John, iii. 16, by Episcopius, 
— ' there,' says he, ' I bid John Calvin good night.'" 

§ "I am aware," says Bishop Tomline, " that some persons, now living, 
who seem to glory in the name of Calvinists, maintain the doctrine of Elec- 
tion and reject that of Reprobation. That this was not the system of Calvin 
N 18* 



210 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



charitably, I must say, than logically, its concomitant and con. 
sequence, Reprobation. 

Such, rapidly traced, has been the course and fate of the two 
leading branches of the original Pretestant creed ; both dwindled 
away to mere shadows in those countries where they first took 
their rise,- — or rather superseded there by a system hardly pre- 
tending to be Christian, — while, the only one of the two that 
still exists, in more than name, has abandoned all that constituted 
originally its essence, and, in England, is chiefly indebted for its 
distinctive character to that party spirit, which a Church, fenced 
round by human formularies, is always sure to generate. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

Rise of infidel opinions in Europe, soon after the Synod of Dort. — Lord 
Herbert, Hobbes, Spinoza. — Beginnings of Rationalism among Calvinists. 
— Bekker, Peyrere, Meyer. — Lutheran Church continued free from in- 
fidelity much longer than the Calvinian. 

The main object which I have had in view, in the historical 
sketch given in the preceding Chapter, is to show that, in the re- 
action produced among Protestants themselves, as well by the 
impious and irrational consequences of some of their own doc- 
trines, as by the unchristian intolerance with which those doc- 
trines had been enforced, lay one of the chief sources of that 
infidelity by which their Churches have since been deluged. 

In further confirmation of this remark, we shall find that it 
was but a short time after the monstrous decisions of the Synod 
of Dort,* that scepticism began openly to display itself, among 

himself, will fully appear by the quotations from his works ; and that it was 
not the system of the Calvinists, at the end of Q.ueen Elizabeth's reign, will 
be equally evident from the first of the Lambeth articles, &c." — Refutation of 
Calvinism. " Many Calvinists, both at home and abroad, including the prin- 
cipal American divines, reject the second leading article of the Calvimstic 
creed, and hold Universal Redemption." — Adams's Religious World Dis- 
played. 

* " By way of argument to the following story, you will permit me to 
remind you that the Contra-remonstrants in the Synod of Dort. condemned 
the lax opinions of the remonstrants, concerning Original Sin and Free Will. 
"Two of their Divines (Contra-remonstrants) elated with victory, insulted a 
poor fellow who was a Remonstrant, and said, ' What were you thinking of 
with that grave face ?' ' I was thinking, gentlemen,' said he, j of a con- 
troverted question — Who was the author of sin ? Adam shifted it off from 
himself and laid it to his wife • she laid it to the serpent ; the serpent, who 
was then young and bashful, had not a word to say for himself : but after- 
wards, growing older and more audacious, he went to the Synod of Dort, and 
there he had the assurance to charge it upon God !"'— Letters from the latt 
Lord Chedtoarth to the Rev. Thomas Crampton. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



211 



professed Protestants, in different countries of Europe. It was 
then, in that dawn of the era of Rationalism, that Lord Herbert 
of Cherbury asserted the sufficiency and absolute perfection of 
the Religion of Nature ; — that Hobbes anticipated the German 
theologians of the present day in questioning the authenticity of 
the Old Testament and the divine authority of the New, and even 
let fall those seeds of doubt as to the existence of a Supreme 
Being, which, in the gloomy mind of his contemporary, Spinoza, 
soon ripened into Atheism. 

Already, too, at that same period, had a school of Divines, 
under the name of Rationals, appeared, whose principle it was 
to apply the touchstone of reason to religion, and reject all that 
was not conformable to that capricious test.* It is also confir- 
matory of what I have above remarked as to the share Calvinism 
had in producing these results, that Predestination was the very 
first doctrine on which these Socinians in disguise opened their 
batteries. As might be expected, too, it was among Calvinists 
that the reaction against their own creed commenced j and thus 
has the same sect, by a fate common to all heresies, given birth 
to the two opposing extremes, — both to the fanaticism which 
first ingrafted such errors on Christianity, and the infidelity 
which tore up tree and graft together. 

One of the first of these Calvinist sceptics was Bekker, a 
Dutch Divine, who, attempting the same sort of alliance between 
Philosophy and Religion which has been the means of bringing 
Christianity to its present state in Germany, employed the prin- 
ciples of Descartes to undermine some of the leading doctrines 
of Scripture. The account of the temptation of our first Parents, 
the agency of good and evil Spirits, the demoniac possessions in 
the New Testament, and the Temptation of our Saviour, were 
among the chief points on which this Rationalist Divine exercised 
his scepticism; and while his master, Calvin, besides that de- 
moniac principle which he supposed lodged in every human 
breast, admitted also the direct influence of the Devil on human 
actions, his follower, Bekker, denies all agency of the Devil 
Whatever, and (forestalling the shallow device of our modern 
Rationalists, so much as to leave them not even the credit of 
originality in wrong) resolves all those passages in the Old and 
New Testament, where the interposition of the Evil Spirit is 
described, into mere allegory and mythos. 

To another Calvinist writer, stdl earlier, (1655) the annals ot 
Rationalism are indebted for a book which, though now long for- 
gotten, produced, on its first appearance, such an explosion of 
indignation as could with difficulty be brought to stop short at 

* See an account of this school of Theologians, in Bayle's Riponse aua 
Questions (Tun Provincial, c. 130. 



212 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



the mere imprisonment of the author. Of this strange work* 
the main object is to prove, from the 5th Chapter of St. Paul to 
the Romans, that there had existed nations and races of men be- 
fore Adam, and that he was but called the first man, because with 
him the Law commenced. 

In the course of his pretended proofs of this hypothesis, the 
author (a French Protestant, Peyrere) suggests solutions of some 
of the miracles of the Old Testament, which approach nearer 
even than those of Bekker to the plain but clumsy mode of in- 
terpretation adopted by Paulus and other moderns. For instance, 
it was not necessary, he says, that the sun should retrograde be- 
cause the shadow of the dial was put back for Hezekiah. What- 
ever miracle there was in the circumstance must be confined to 
the dial of Ahaz alone, j" 

In the same manner, the sun standing still for Joshua was 
nothing more, he thinks, than that sort of optical delusion which 
is common in most hilly countries, at sunset, when, though the 
sun has gone down, its orb appears to be still stationary in the 
heavens.:}: The miracle in Deuteronomy of the clothes and shoes 
of the Israelites having been kept from " waxing old," during 
their forty years in the wilderness, this author ridicules in almost 
the very same terms which were employed afterwards by Voltaire 
for the same purpose ;§ and the whole miracle is, he thinks, to 
be accounted for by the supplies of materials for making cloth 
mg which the Israelites derived from their flocks and other nat- 
ural sources. From the plea set forth by this author in defence 
of his own impiety, — that he had been led to such doctrine " by 
the principle of Protestants," — we may see how clearly, even at 
that time, the natural tendency of Protestantism to gravitate to- 
wards infidelity, was not merely prognosticated, but felt. 

There is yet another work of the same period (1666,) which 
both its title and the circumstance of its being republished by 

* PrceadamitcB sive Exercitatio super versibus 12, 13, 14, cap. 5 Epist. Paul 
ad Romunos. 

f Ponatur miraculum in horologio ipso, in horologio Achas, ut vult Scrip- 
tura ; stabit miraculum suo loco — stabit natura suo ordine, nec facinabitur 
intellectus praestigiis inanibus. 

I Fulgor sons, sine sole ipso, et miraculo maximo superesset in atmo- 
sphajra, vel regione vaporum ilia, quae civitati Gabaonicae, caeli et aeris medio, 
incubabat: Solis vero fulgor civitatem Gabaonicam et montem Gabaon 
verberaret, &c. — The author adds that he himself had often witnessed the 
•Same phenomenon, among the mountains of Gluercy, where he dwelt. 

§ Gtuod de calceamentis eorum itidem dejerant, nulla unquam vetustate 
fuisse consumpta, atque adeo ubi primum induxissent calceos infantibus 
crescentibus infantum pedibus, crevisse eorum calceos. — "Non seulement," 
says Voltaire, "les habits des Hebreux ne s'userent point dans leur marche 
de quarante annges, au soleil et a la pluie, et en couchant sur la dure, maia 
que ceux desenfans croissaient avec eux, et s'elargissaient merveilleusement, 
a mesure qu'ils avancaient en age." 



IN SEARCH OF A KELitviUIN 



213 



Semler, sufficiently announce as one of the harbingers of that 
intidel school of which Semler was the founder. I allude to ike 
once celebrated work, " Philosophy, the Interpreter of Scripture," 
which, on its first appearance, was attributed to the notorious 
Spinoza, but proved afterwards to have come from the pen of his 
friend and physician, Lewis Meyer. 

in subtlety as well as in mischief, this Amsterdam Rationalist 
was a fit forerunner of the present race of Protestant sceptics; 
arid the following specimen of his work will at once show its in- 
sidious nature, and prove, — what frequently I have endeavored 
to impress upon my reader,— the great triumph it has been for 
infidelity, by the avowal of infidels themselves, to have been able, 
by philosophizing away the mystery of the Real Presence, to 
open a way for the subversion of all mysteries whatever. 54 There 
are," says this pupil of Spinoza, " three Mysteries, of which Phi- 
losophy alone can properly be the interpreter ; — and these are 1, 
God, — 2, the Real Presence, — 3, the Trinity. The second of 
these, the Reformed Church has already disposed of, — showing, 
by the aid of Philosophy, that her own opinion, on the subject, 
is the true one, and that of the Catholics and Lutherans, absurd." 
With a silence, then, but too significant, as to the first of the three 
Mysteries, on his list, he proceeds to apply to the third mode of 
philosophizing which had been so successful with the second.* 

Having traced thus far the progress of that Anti-christian 
principle, which deriving its origin from the very foundations of 
Protestantism itself, has since branched out in a multiplicity of 
names and shapes, and is, at this moment, under its most recent 
and apparently last disguise, employed in spiriting away the sub- 
stance of Christianity, in every country where the Reformation 
has taken root, I shall now, for the further descending steps of 
the pedigree of this principle, more especially in that country 
where its effects are most conspicuous, refer to the pages of a 
writer whose authority 1 have frequently had to adduce, Mr. 

* Of the discussion, respecting the mystery of the Trinity, he says — 
"Quanto sane satins fuisset illam pro mysterio non habuisse, et philosophiae 
ope, antequam tjuod esset statuerent, secundum vera) logices praecepta, quid 
esset cum CI. Kekkermanno investigasse." That the absurdities of theology 
have been, at all times, the food and fuel of scepticism, cannot be more clearly 
proved than by the use which this writer makes of the monstrous notion 
broached by some Protestant divines, that God intentionally gave double 
meanings to some of the precepts of his Word, and rather wished that they 
should be misunderstood by those to whom he addressed them. Such is the 
doctrine advanced in a passage of Wolzous which he cites : — "Cluandoque 
Deus, ut dubios et suspensos relinquat, ve| ipsos cos, quos sufficienti gratia 
spiritus donavit, ut quyecunque ex ilia tunc orationc hauriri possint, eliciant, 
non tamen omnem eliciant veritatem : orationetn ehim volvat, et revolvat cen- 
tres, sit va'.'iiiH prasconceptis opinionibus, omnia examinet, qua? usus lingua* 
requint, ut intu nti textum nil appareat esse neglcctum, noluit tamen hoc tem- 
pore intelligi Dcua, inw voluU permittere ut aliquantisper errwclur." 



214 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Pusey. The ability and research with which this gentleman 
has traced, through all its stages, that " gradual descent," as he 
expresses it, " of Theology into a system of unbelief," which 
marked the course of the German Church, during the eighteenth 
century, can admit of no dissentient opinion. It is only to be 
regretted that, by confining himself exclusively to the Lutheran 
branch of Protestantism, he has lost the still stronger illustrations 
of his subject, which the career of Calvinism would so strikingly 
have supplied ; and it is, in some measure, to remedy this very 
important omission, that those instances of the progress of Ra- 
tionalism among Calvinists, which I have just laid before the 
reader, were collected. 

There would be no difficulty, indeed, in showing that, from 
the very first, a disposition to unbelief was far more prevalent 
among the members of the Reformed Church than of the Luthe- 
ran ; and the names of Laelius Socinus, Gentilis, Ochinus and 
others, prove how early Geneva began to produce its natural 
fruits. Without ascending any higher, however, than the middle 
of the seventeenth century, we have seen that at a time when 
the Lutheran Church was still immersed in all the absurdities of 
its theology, — wrangling, tooth and nail, against Good Works, 
and for the Ubiquity of Christ's manhood, — the process of rea- 
soning away all Christian doctrine whatever had already com- 
menced among the Calvinists ; — that long before any of those 
critics and scholars were born, to whom Mr. Pusey assigns the 
first origin of Rationalism, its most distinguishing features and 
principles had been anticipated ; and that the very subject of 
Demoniacal Possessions, upon which Semler commenced his 
rationalizing career, had been turned by Bekker to the same 
sceptical purposes more than half a century before. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

Return to England. — Inquiry into the history of English Protestantism. — Its 
close similarity to the history of German Protestantism. — Selfishness and 
hypocrisy of the first Reformers in both countries. — Variations of creed. — ■ 
Persecutions and burnings. — Recantations of Cranmer, Latimer, &c. — 
Effects of the Reformation in demoralizing the people. — Proofs from Ger- 
man and English writers. 

They show, or, at least, used to show, in the library of the 
Abbey of St. Anthony, in Dauphine, an original letter of Eras- 
mus,* in which that great man declares, that he would sooner 
suffer himself to be cut to pieces, than not believe in the reality 



* Voyage Litteraire de deux Religieux Benedictms. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



215 



of the body and blood in the Sacrament. Without pretending to 
more of the spirit of a martyr than I am likely to be called upon 
to exercise, and confining my heroism, too, within bounds pro- 
portionate to the immense distance between my humble self and 
Erasmus, I shall here merely communicate to my reader, that I 
had now come to the magnanimous determination to prefer 
Popery and poverty, for the remainder of my days, to the alter- 
native of Protestantism and two thousand pounds a year, with 
Miss * * at Ballymudragget. 

After remaining some months longer in Germany, I prepared 
to set out for England, — having passed the latter part of my time 
in society much more suited to my tastes than that of the 
Scratchenbachs of the University, namely, some quiet and intel- 
ligent Catholic families, whom I found in the midst of this wreck 
of all other creeds, pursuing tranquilly and implicitly the very 
same paths of faith which their Church has now trodden for 
nearly two thousand years. It is, indeed, a most impressive spec- 
tacle, which the state of Germany, at this moment, presents ; 
divided, — according to Mr. Southey's concise and pithy descrip- 
tion, — " between the old religion, on the one side, and the new 
irreligion on the other."* 

The sagacious prediction of Bayle, that a day would yet arrive 
when the Lutherans, no longer rinding their creed in the Augs- 
burg Confession, would " put all matters again on their former 
footing," is now in a fair train for accomplishment ; as already 
numbers of Protestants, disgusted at the unchristian mockery of 
their own miscalled churches, have embraced the faith of Rome, 
with every prospect of their example being still more extensively 
followed. It is, in fact, the alarm produced by these desertions 
to the Catholic Church that has chiefly caused that apparent re- 
action, in favor of Christianity, which has been, of late, observa- 
ble in Germany, as well as those retractions of their former blas- 
phemies which the De Wettes and Bretschneiders have, with so 
little appearance, I must say, of sincerity,! been hastening to 
proffer to the public. 

On my arrival in England, finding my taste for theological 
reading return, I was glad to avail myself of the few months of 
leisure I had yet at command, and immediately proceeded to 
inquire into the state and history of Protestantism in that coun- 
try, quite as zealously as I had pursued the similar line of study 

* Colloquies, &c. 

f Though professing, as it seems, to recant their former sceptical notions, 
both these writers have republished, and with but little alteration, the very 
works which contained them ; and in the Preface which De Wette has pre- 
fixed to the second edition of his "De Morte expiatoria, &c," we find little 
more than a sort of apology for his unchristian assertion that "Jesus took 
upon himself to personate the Messiah." 



216 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



in Germany. Not that there hung even the penumbra of a 
doubt round the conclusions at which I had now arrived ; but, 
having carried thus far the researches which I had been induced 
to enter upon, it was naturally my wish to collect such mate- 
rials, respecting the English Church, as would enable me to 
complete the Panorama of Protestantism which I had com- 
menced. Having now, however, nearly rilled up the canvass 
which I had allotted for the sketch contained in this volume, 
I must reserve the picture which I had prepared of the English 
Reformation for some future opportunity. 

In the meantime, I shall here briefly call attention to a few 
ominous resemblances which, on comparing the course of Eng- 
lish with that of German Protestantism, could not but strike me 
as existing strongly between them, — so strongly as scarce to 
warrant even a hope that two systems so kindred in their origin 
and tendencies could lead ultimately to any other than kindred 
results. The same selfishness and hypocrisy which marked the 
movers of the German Reformation are seen but in more intense 
• and revolting activity among the founders of the same faith in 
England.* The high stations, indeed, of the principal actors on 
the latter scene, gave proportionately more impulse and oppor- 
tunity to such vices ; and, while in Henry VIII we find all the 
temperament of a Luther let loose, as it were, upon a throne, so 
in Cranmer all the suppleness and hypocrisy of a Bucer were, 
by the constant demands upon him for these qualities, multiplied 
a hundred fold."]* 

Even the subservience shown by the Reformers of both coun. 
tries to the gross passions of their royal patrons, will be found 
to have been marked by the same comparative degrees of base- 
ness ; for while, on the one hand, the licentious bigamy of the 
Landgrave of Hesse, — licentious, but at least bloodless, — received 
the sanction, under their own signatures, of Luther, Bucer, and 

* The writer of an article in the Edinburgh Review, upon Mr. Hallam's 
admirable work, the Constitutional History, thus truly describes the founders 
of the English Reformation: — "A king, whose character may be best de- 
scribed by saying, that he was despotism itself personified ; unprincipled min- 
isters ; a rapacious aristocracy ; a servile parliament. Such were the instru- 
ments by which England was delivered from the yoke of Rome. The work 
which had been begun by Henry, the murderer of his wrves, va? continued 
by Somerset, the murderer of his brother, and completed by Ei'zabeth, the 
murderer of her guest." — Edinburgh Review. 

f It is not a little curious to observe that, in the same manner as the vio- 
lence and intolerance of Luther were inherited amply by his Church, so the 
hypocrisy and servile spirit of Cranmer have survived to this day in that Es- 
tablishment of which he was a founder ; and, in no instance, perhaps, has 
the hypocritical taint, thus entailed, been more strikingly exhibited than in 
those vindications of his (Cranmer's) own character, whico, in defiance of all 
truth and decency, even such respectable divines auth'sRov Mr. Todd, think 
themselves bound, for the sake and interests of their o.&?r> tv undertake. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



217 



Melancthon ; on the other, the murderous marriages of Henry 
VIII were not only connived at, but concerted, by those still more 
obsequious tools of Royal Reformation, Cranmer and Cromwell.* 

The changes of doctrine through which, in both countries, the 
new creed had to transmigrate, form another of those points of 
resemblance which force themselves on our attention ; and, as 
if, even then, the founders of Protestantism had a sort of presci- 
ent consciousness that their Church, in " fame of instability," 
Would rival even Delos,f a provision for future changes, accord- 
ing as occasion might require, was expressly stipulated for by 
Melancthon, and, in England, formed the subject of that pro- 
spective declaration to which the obedient bishops of Henry VIII 
did not hesitate to pledge themselves. 

That among the first English Reformers there should have 
been so little of that contentious spirit which rendered theology 
such an arena of discord among the Germans, is a fact easily, 
but disgracefully, to be accounted for, by the self-prostration of 
the English Church before the throne, which left her no will or 
opinion but at the beck of the monarch, no alternative but to 
believe whatever he dictated and be silent. i. 

To the same slavish self-abasement, is to be attributed that 
facility in recanting and abjuring which some of the most emi- 
nent of the English Divines, by frequent practice, acquired ; the 
specious Cranmer having subscribed no less than six recanta- 
tions ; while Latimer even exceeded, by two or three, that num- 
ber. Still more disgusting was the spectacle which these dis- 
semblers presented in acting as persecutors for the cause which 
in secret they hated, and condemning wretches to the flames for 
opinions with which, in their hearts, they agreed. 

In this monstrous combination of insincerity, with cruelty, lies 
the distinction between the English and Helvetian persecutors ; 
for, though these latter champions of the right of private judg- 
ment condemned Servetus to the flames, and sent Gentilis and 
Gruet to the block, it was, at least, for opinions which they them- 
selves held to be heretical and impious. But the code of per- 

* The writer of the article in the Edinburgh Review, above referred to, — 
an article written "with a power of thought and style which leaves no doubt 
as to the masterly hand from which it Came, — thus speaks of Cranmer: — 
'1 Intolerance is always bad ; but the sanguinary intolerance of a man who 
thus wavered in his creed, creates a loathing to which it is difficult to give 
vent without calling foul names. Equally false to political and to religious 
obligations, he was first the tool of Somerset and then of Northumberland. 
When the former wished to put his own brother to death, without even the 
form of a t ial, he found a ready instrument in Cranmer," &c. &c. 

f Nec instabili fama. superabere Delo. — Stat. 

I So far did the Church of England carry the slavish principle on which 
she commenced her course, that, on the death of Henry VlII, Cranmer sur- 
rendered his archiepiscopal authority to the infant monarch, and received it 
back at his hands. 

19 



218 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



secution had yet to furnish a still more notable precedent ; and 
for those Saints of the English Church, Latimer and Cranmer, 
it was reserved to sit as accessories to the burning of Christians 
for opinions which they, the burners, approved ! 

While such were the moral fruits of the Reformation, as dis- 
played in its leading authors and teachers,, the effect which it 
produced on the people at large, could not be expected to have 
been of a more salutary character. Accordingly, the descrip- 
tions given by eminent Protestant writers, both English and 
German, of the state of morality in their respective countries, 
during the first century of this great change, bear, upon every 
essential point, such similarity to each other, as leaves not a 
doubt of the common origin of the evils of which they complain. 

To begin with the Germans. — Throughout the writings of the 
admirable Andrea, a man who, to use the language of Herder,* 
" bloomed like a rose among thorns," we find the most bitter 
complaints of the flagrant corruption of his times. " Idols," he 
says, " have been cast out, but the idols of sins are worshipped. 
The primacy of the Pope is denied, but we constitute lesser 
Popes. The Bishops are abrogated, but ministers are still in- 
troduced or cast out, at will. Simony came into disrepute, but 
who now rejects a purse of gold ? The monks were reproached 
for indolence, — as if there were too much study at our Univer- 
sities. The monasteries were dissolved, — to stand empty, or to 
be stalls for cattle. The regularly recurring prayers are abol- 
ished, — yet so that now most pray not at all. The public fasts 
w r ere laid aside, — now the commands of Christ are held to be 
but useless words ; not to say any thing of blasphemers, adul- 
terers, extortioners,"*}* &c. Another writer, Walch, acknow- 
ledges that " the complaints of the sunken state of Christianity, 
and the corruption of the clergy, were not exaggerated ;" and 
Carpzoff, in speaking of the efforts of the pious Spener to amend 
" the stiff-neckedness of that godless age," says, " I praise the 
attempt, I add my wishes ; but I despair of success, on account 
of the desperate depravity of these last times." 

By the side of these strong testimonies to the demoralizing 
effect of the Reformation in Germany, I shall here place two 
passages, describing its results in England, from no less author- 

* Quoted by Mf. Pusey. 

f In another place, Andrea says, " he who knows the avarice of the clergy 
and their unbridled life, will not be astonished that they no longer stand in 
that respect with the people which were fitting." If we may believe this 
pious and conscientious writer, Luther himself foresaw, or rather already 
experienced, the baleful, consequences of the creed which he yet so rashly 
preached. " No complaints," says Andrea, " more often occur to me than 
those of that divine man (Luther) who foresaw the license of the Evangelic 
Church, and whose pen, unconquerable by all his enemies, almost sunk under 
the dissoluteness of his folloioers, and the specious pretext of the Gospel." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



219 



ities than Camden and Burnet : — " Sacrilegious avarice," says 
Camden, in speaking of the time of Edward VI, " ravenously in- 
vaded Church livings, colleges, chauntries, hospitals, and places 
dedicated to the poor, as things superfluous. Ambition and emu- 
lation among the nobility, presumption and disobedience among 
he common people, grew so extravagant, that England seemed 
k> be in a downright frenzy."* 

Not less strong, to the same purport, is Burnet : — " This gross . 
and insatiable scramble after the goods and wealth that had been 
dedicated to good designs, without the applying any part of it to 
promote the good of the Gospel, the instruction of the poor, mt.de 
all people conclude that it was for robbery, and not for reforma- 
tion, that their zeal made them so active. The irregular and 
immoral lives of many of the professors of the Gospel, gave their 
enemies great advantage to say, that they ran away from con- 
fession, penance, fasting, and prayer, only to be under no re- 
straint, and to indulge themselves in a licentious and dissolute 
course of life.j" By these things, that were but too visible in 
some of the most eminent among them, the people were much 
alienated from them ; and, as much as they were formerly against 
Popery, they grew to have kinder thoughts of it, and to look on 
all the changes that had been made, as designs to enrich some 
vicious characters, and to let in an inundation of vice and wick- 
edness upon the nation.":}: 

We have seen with what slowness and reluctance the great 
mystery of the Real Presence was surrendered by almost all the 
Continental Reformers, — Luther himself, with all his efforts, 
being unable to cast it ofT,§ and Melancthon, though, in his latter 

* Camden, Introduction to the Annals of Q,ueen Elizabeth. 

f Almost word for word, the very language employed by Bucer, in describ- 
ing the effects of the Reformation in Germany. — See the passage extracted 
from his De Regn. Christ, p. 167 of this volume. 

| Hist, of the Reformat ion. — To these undeniable testimonies may be added 
that of Strype: — " The Churchmen heaped up many benefices upon them- 
selves, and resided upon none, neglecting their cures ; many of them alienated 
their lands, made unreasonable leases, and wastes of their woods ; granted 
reversions and advowsons to their wives and children, or to others for their 
use. Churches ran greatly into dilapidations and decays, and were kept 
nasty and undecent for God's worship. Among the Laity there was little 
devotion ; — the Lord's Day greatly profaned and little observed, the common 
prayers not frequented. Some lived without any service of God at all. Many 
were mere heathens and atheists ; — the Glueen's own court an harbor for 
Epicures and Atheists, and a kind of lawless place, because it stood in no 
parish." — Life of Parker. 

§ Luther became, indeed, even more Popish, on this point, before his death ; 
and in a Thesis published by him, against the Doctors of Louvain, in 1545, 
(but a year before he died,) called the Eucharist " the adorable Sacrament ;" 
— to the no small consternation of the Sacramentarians, whom he had de- 
lighted by abolishing the elevation, and whom, therefore, this inconsistent 
admission but the more thoroughly confounded. Calvin writes to Bucer, on 
the occasion, "He has lifted up the idol in the temple of God." 



220 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



days,- inclined to Sacramentarianism, yet leaving undisturbed in 
the Protestant formularies of faith, those affirmations of the an- 
cient doctrine which his own hand had there recorded ; while 
Calvin, in order to disguise the extent of his innovation, threw 
such ambiguity of phrase round his rejection of a Real Presence, 
as enabled Bucer to pretend that it was meant as an acceptance 
of it.* 

A similar reluctance to part with this vital doctrine was mani- 
fested through a very long period in England. Under Henry 
VIK, the zeal of both monarch and church for its maintenance, 
was shown by their burning all those who dared openly to dis- 
sent from it ; and in the following reign, we find even the intro- 
ducer of Zwinglianism, Pdtet- Martyr, allowing, as Fox tells us, 
" a change of substance of bread and wine."f 

In the reign of Elizabeth, who was herself supposed to favor 
this doctrine, a paragraph added to the 28th Article in the time 
of Edward VI, and declaring expressly .against a Real Presence 
was, by her desire, suppressed.^: "She inclined," says Burnet, 
" to have the manner of Christ's presence in the Sacrament left 
in some general words, that those who believed the Corporal 
Presence might not be driven away from the Church by too nice 
an explanation of it." 

Even at so late a period as during the reigns of James I, and 
his successor, the language of many most eminent Prelates, re- 

* We find a similar style of mystification still resorted to by those few 
Protestant controvertists, who, in order to maintain some little consistency 
with the Church of England catechism, affect to uphold a Real Presence. 
Thus the theologians of the British Critic insist that "a Real Pesence is the 
doctrine of the Church of England ;" — while Mr. Faber talks of "a change 
in the elements, — a moral change." All this, however, is but a mere stale 
repetition of the old trick of Heresy, — "speaking the same tilings, but mean- 
ing them differently," bjioia [isv AaAowrfj, avojxoia 6e (bpovovvrss. In such manner 
was it, as Irenseus tells us, that the first Gnostics proceeded, — using the 
same language with the orthodox Church, but thinking differently. 

f At one of the disputations held between Protestants and Catholics, 
during the reign of Edward the Sixth, the Real Presence was asserted by 
the advocate of the Protestant cause, Mr. Perne, who said, " We deny nothing 
less than his presence, or the absence of his substance in the bread." At 
this deputation Ridley presided. 

t The following is the paragraph : — " Forasmuch as the truth of man's 
nature requireth that the body of one and the selfsame man cannot be, at 
one time, in divers places, but must needs be in one certain place, there- 
fore the body of Christ cannot be, at one time, in many and divers places; 
and because, as Holy Scripture doth teach, Christ was taken up into heaven, 
and there shall continue unto the end of the world, a faithful man ought not 
either to believe or openly confess the Real and Bodily Presence, as they 
term it, of Christ's flesh and blood in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper." 
In explaining the Protestant meaning of a Real Presence, Gilbert says, " In 
this sense, it is innocent of itself and may be lawfully used ; though perhaps 
it were more cautiously done not to use it, since advantages have been taken 
of it to urge it further than we intend it." ' 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



221 



specting this Sacrament, differed but little from that of Catholics 
themselves upon the subject. "We adore, with Ambrose,"* 
says Bishop Andrews, " the flesh of Christ in the Mysteries." 
The same divine, addressing Bellarmine, and professing to an- 
swer as well for King James as for himself, says, " We believe 
a Presence no less true than that which you yourself believe."f 
Archbishop Laud drew from the Reality of the Presence a rea- 
son for reverence to the altar, as being, " upon this account, the 
greatest place of God's residence upon earth ;" and Bishop 
Forbes declares it to be " a frightful error in those rigid Protest- 
ants who deny that Christ is to be adored in the Eucharist. "J 
Thus, too, Bishop Cousin, in his History of Transubstantiatiori : 
— " Although it seems incredible that in so great a distance of 
place, Christ's flesh should come to us to be our food, yet we 
must remember how much the power of the Holy Spirit is above 
our understanding, and how foolish it is to measure his immen 
sity by our capacity. "§ 

* Nos vero in mysteriis Carnem Christi adoramus cum Ambrosio. An 
siver to Bellarmine' s Apology. — When it is recollected that St. Ambrose upheld, 
in its highest Catholic sense, the doctrine of Transubstantiation, the strength 
of this declaration of Bishop Andrews will be the more fully appreciated. See 
the extract which I "have given from Clarke's Ecclesiastical Literature, vol. i, 
p. 163. — "In doctrine," says this learned Protestant writer, "St. Ambrose 
is all that Rome could wish him." 

f Praesentiam, inquam, credimus, nec minus quam vos veram. — Answer 
to Bellarmine. 

\ Immanis est rigidorum Protestantium error, qui negant Christum in 
Eucharistia esse adorandum nisi adoratione interna et mentali, non autem 
externo aliquoritu, &c. &c. — De Eucharist. 

§ The testimonies of Hooker and Jeremy Taylor, on this subject, though 
well known, are of too much importance not to be added to the above au- 
thorities. " I wish," says Hooker, " men would give themselves more time 
to meditate with silence on what we have in the Sacrament, and less to dis- 
pute on the manner How. Sith we all agree that Christ by the Sacrament 
doth really and truly perform in us his promise, why do we vainly trouble 
ourselves with so fierce contentions, whether by consubstantiation, or else tran- 
substantiation ?" — Ecclesiastical Polity. The passage from Jeremy Taylor is 
of still more value, as being not merely a record of the opinion of so eminent 
a divine, on this point, but also a vindication of the Catholics from the charge 
of idolatry in their adoration of the Presence. " The object of their (the Cath- 
olics) adoration in the Sacrament is the only true and eternal God hypostati- 
cally united with his holy humanity, which humanity they believe actually 
present under the veil of the Sacrament; and if they thought him not present, 
they are so far from worshipping the bread, that they profess it idolatry to do 
so." — Liberty of Prophesying. It is usual to contrast with this passage of 
Bishop Taylor, another, of apparently different import, fiom a later work of 
the same eminent man, entitled " Dissuasive from Popery." But those who 
compare the labored language in which his latter opinion is conveyed, with 
the simple, clear enunciation of doctrine just cited, can little dcubt as to 
which of the two passages they would select as the true record of his views. 
A man who expresses himself in the following scholastic fashion can hardly 
escape the suspicion of being actuated by a wish to deceive either himself 
or others : — " In calling it Corpus Spirituale, the word Spirituale is not a 
substantial predicate, but is an affirmation of the manner ; though, in dispu- 

19* 



222 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



Still later, in the time of Charles II, we find, in the Exposi- 
tion of the amiable and pious Bishop Ken, the following impres- 
sive sentences : — " Oh God Incarnate, how thou canst give us 
thy flesh to eat and thy blood to drink ; how thy flesh is meat, 
indeed ; how thou, who ait in heaven, art present on the altar, 
I can by no means explain ; but I firmly believe it all, because 
Thou has said it, and I firmly rely on thy love and thy omnipo- 
tence to make good thy word, though the manner of doing it I 
cannot comprehend." 

The Catholic belief of a sacrificial offering in the Eucharist 
was even more extensively, at the period of which I have been 
speaking, prevalent among Protestants ; and, among others, the 
profound scholar, Joseph Mede, lent the high sanction of his 
authority* to this doctrine. In answering the famous Calvinist, 
Twisse, who had said that there was but little evidence for the 
Eucharistic Sacrifice in antiquity, Mede asks, " What is there in 
Christianity for which more antiquity may be brought than for 
this ? I speak not now of the Father's meaning, (whether I 
guessed rightly at it or not,) but in general of their notion of a 
Sacrifice in the Eucharist. If there is little antiquity in this, 
there is no antiquity for any thing." He then quotes, as con- 
firmatory of his own opinion, the candid avowal prefixed by 
Bishop Morton to his work on the Eucharist, — " We freely ac- 
knowledge the fact that there is frequent mention made by the 
Ancient Fathers of the bloodless sacrifice of the body of Christ 
in the Eucharist." 

Such attestations to the truth of the Catholic doctrine on this 
point, particularly from a Protestant so versed in Christian an- 
tiquity as Mede, cannot but be considered highly important ;j" 

tation, it be made the predicate of a proposition, and the opposite member 
of a distinction." — Dissuasive from Popery. 

* In maintaining a proper and material Sacrifice in the Eucharist, Mede 
was followed by another great scholar, in the same walk of learning, Doctor 
Grabe, Avho even composed a Liturgy, for his own use, in which the ancient 
prayer, founded on this doctrine, was restored. So great a concession to 
the Catholics could not but excite alarm among their opponents; and ac- 
cordingly this opinion of Mede and Grabe was strongly censured, as an 
acknowledgment of the Sacrifice of the Mass, by Buddeus, Ittigius, Deylin- 
gius, and other continental divines. Embarrassed thus between the fear of 
favoring Popery, on one side, and the irresistibly strong language of the 
Fathers, on the other, some of the most eminent of the English theologians, 
and, among others, Cudworth and Waterland, while they deny any proper 
or material Sacrifice in the Eucharist, go so far as to admit it to be a symboli- 
cal feast upon a Sacrifice ; that is to say, (as Waterland explains it,) " upon 
the Grand Sacrifice itself commemorated under certain Symbols." Such are 
the pitiable evasions of evidence and authority to which Protestants are 
compelled, by their schismatic position, to have recourse ! 

| So insurmountable is the evidence for the early date of the Sacrifice of 
the Mass, that Hospinian, the Protestant historian, is forced to attribute to 
the devil thp ; introduction of such Popish abominations in the very lifetime 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



223 



and the following passage, from his letter to Twisse, contains, in 
a few pregnant sentences, the whole pith of what I have been 
endeavoring, throughout these pages, to inculcate : — " Yet, one 
thing more : it is no time now to slight the Catholic consent of 
the Church in her first ages, when Socinianism grows so fast on 
the rejection thereof, nor to abhor so much the notion of a Com- 
memorative Sacrifice in the Eucharist, when we shall meet with 
those who will deny the death of Christ upon the cross to have 
been a sacrifice for sin. Verbum intelligenti. There may be 
here some matter of importance." 

But, to return to my parallel. — The bitter discord between the 
Lutheran and Calvinist Churches which, if it did not produce, 
at least deepened and prolonged the horrors of the Thirty Years' 
War, finds no unapt counterpart in the long struggle between 
the Church of England and the Puritans, and that fierce civil 
war which ensued. This similarity, as well in causes as ef- 
fects, on both sides, was not likely to escape the observation of 
Mr. Pusey, who, in showing how r much of the irreligion of Ger- 
many is to be attributed to the English infidel writers of the 
seventeenth century, traces the origin of this infidelity, in Eng- 
land itself, to " the sunken state of Christianity through the civil 
wars, and the controversies of imbittered parties." Nothing, 
indeed, could well be more calculated to bring religion itself into 
disrepute, than thus to see two great nations torn up by internal 
faction and hate, on points of difference, to which, at this day, 
no rational mind can look back, without a mixed feeling of sor- 
row, ridicule, and wonder. 

But, however absurd were most of the doctrines about which 
the German Churches wrangled so furiously, they were, at least, 
subjects of speculation, and, as opening a field for the gymnastics 
of argument, were, in so far, more respectable than those 
wretched points of strife so long contested between the Church 
of England and her Puritan opponents. Whether the clergy 
ought to wear linen surplices and caps ;* whether steeples ought 

as he owns, of the Apostles themselves ! — "Even in that first age," says this 
writer, " whilst the Apostles were still alive, the devil had the audacity to lie 
I'll ambush, under this Sacrament, more than under that of Baptism, and 
gradually seduced men from that primitive form." Sebastianus Francus, too, 
illovvs that, " Immediately after the time of the Apostles, all things were in- 
verted, — the Lord's Supper iuas transformed into a Sacrifice." 

* There appear to have been some, even among the reverend sticklers on 
tJiese points, who had the good sense to perceive the wretched nature of their 
Tvarfare. Thus, in a Memorial presented to the Bishops by two deprived 
Dignitaries, Sampson and Humfrey, they " protest, before God, what a bitter 
^rief it was to them, that there should be a dissension between them for so 
tmall a matter as woollen and linen" — (meaning the cap and surplice.) — 
Strype, Life of Parker. Not content with the disgrace redounding to them- 
selves from such trifling, these divines, with the usual profanencss of party- 
theologians, were for enlisting God himself in their war about " woollen and 



224 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



to be surmounted with weathercocks or crosses ;* whether the 
altar should stand in the middle of the church, or, altar- wise, 
with one side to the wall ; whether it is becoming a good Chris- 
tian to pay reverence to the altar,-)- to bow at the name of Jesus, 
or stand up at the Gloria Patri ; J — such were a few of the 
mighty questions at issue between the parties ; such the levers 
of discord by which Protestant England was heaved from her 
very foundations ! 

At the same time that controversies like these were bringing 
ridicule on religion by their frivolousness, the Antinomian tenets,§ 

linen." In a letter written by Bishop Sands, in 1566, he says, " Disputes are 
now on foot concerning the Popish vestments, whether they should be used 
or not; but God will put an end to these things." 

* In a letter to Peter Martyr, Bishop Jewel thus writes: — "The contro- 
versy about Crosses is now grown very warm. You would hardly believe 
how mad some, who seemed wise men, are in a foolish matter." He adds, 
further on, '"Tis come to that pass, that the silver and tin crosses, which we 
had every where broke down, must be set up again, or we must leave our 
bishoprics. The queen (Elizabeth) was so far attached to the ancient faith, 
as to wish to preserve some of these vestiges of it ; and we are told, by Hey- 
lin, that one of her chaplains " speaking less reverently, in a sermon preached 
before her, of the Sign of the Cross, was called to aloud by her out of her 
closet-window, and commanded to retire from that ungodly digression, and 
return to his text." — Hist, of Reformation. 

f As a specimen of their mode of treating these points, I shall here give a 
few sentences from a pamphlet of that period, on the subject of reverence to 
the altar. In a treatise, entitled "Reasons for bowing to the Altar," the 
author had contended, on the grounds afterwards taken up by Archbishop 
Laud, that, " as the Chair of State is always to be honored, though the person 
of the Royal Majesty be not seen there, so is God's Board ever to have due 
reverence, and God, who is there perpetually, is always to be bowed to," &e. 
&c. To this treatise, an answer was published by some Puritan, in which 
are the following sentences. " First, therefore, let them prove that God hath 
and ought to have a seat in every Church." Again, " This gentleman must 
prove that God sits personally sometimes on the table." The conclusion to 
which the Puritan comes, at. last, is, "Therefore, as God is always sitting on 
the table, they ought not to bow or do any reverence to it at all." 

| In a letter from the sturdy Puritan, Twisse, to Mr. Mede, he says, 
"You bade me stand up at Gloria Patri; and it was in such a tone too, that 
you had the mastery of me, I know not how. T profess I little looked for such 
entertainment at your hands. My wife's father, Dr. Moore, was Bishop 
Bilson's chaplain, and most respected by him of any chaplain that ever he 
had, and he a cathedral man, too; but they could never get him to stt'id up at 
Gloria Patri." 

§ In a pamphlet published at that time, by one archer, called, "Comfort 
for Believers in their Sins and Troubles," the doctrine originally held both 
by Luther and Calvin, that G od was the direct author of sin, is thus boldly 
put forward : — " We may safely say, that God is, and hath a hand in, and 
is the author of the sinfulness of his people." After quoting the opinions of 
some divines, who "have erred," as he says, "in making sin more of the 
creature and itself, and less from G od than it is," he adds, " This opinion 
gives not enough to God in sin. Let us embrace and profess the truth, and 
not, fear to say that of God which he, in his Holy Book, saith of himself, 
namely, 'that of Him and from His hand is not only the thing that is sinful, 
hut the pravity and sinfulness of it'" 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



225 



then prevalent among all ranks, still more disgraced it by their 
immorality ;* while, in that infinite power of subdivision into 
new sects and denominations, in which Protestantism, at all times, 
luxuriates, never did she half so unboundedly revel as at lhat 
truly sectarian crisis, j- " England," says a preacher before the 
Commons, in 1647, " was never so bad as in a time of Reforma- 
tion. Witness the numerous and numberless increase of errors and 
heterodox opinions, even to blasphemy, among us ! The world 
once wondered to see itself turned Arian. England may now 
wonder to see itself turned Anabaptist, Ahtinomian^ Arminian 
Socinian, Arian, Anti-Scripturist, what not ! — Alas, what were 
Ceremonies to these things but (as Calvin once called them) 

* What the effects of such tenets must be upon the minds of ordinary and 
ignorant persons may be concluded from their demoralizing influence upon 
those of a superior class. We are assured, by Bishop Burnet, (Sum. of 
Affairs before Reform.) it was the opinion cf Cromwell that, "the moral laws 
were only binding in ordinary cases ; but that, upon extraordinary ones, 
these might be superseded, — he and that set of men (adds Burnet) justifying 
their ill actions from the practice of Ehud and Jael, Sampson and David." 
Most truly has Dr. Hey asserted, in his Theological Lectures, that "the 
misinterpretation of Scriptures brought on the miseries of the Civ.il Wars." 

f There was, in Cromwell's time, a Committee of the House of Commons 
appointed, to " consider of the particular enumeration of damnable heresies.^ 
What a report it must have been ! 

§ Nothing can be imagined more ruinous to all true notions of religion 
and morality, than was the doctrine of Justification, as asserted by the nigh 
Calvinists of that period. All the worst consequences, indeed, that can arise 
from pride and cruelty united, were sure to be engendered, in their most 
odious form, by a creed which held that there was no one sin, however small, 
that did' not deserve eternal torments, nor no number of sins, however great, 
that could deprive the Elect of eternal happiness. — See the small volume of 
Witsius, entitled AnimadversionHs Irenicai, in which, whatever grace can be 
thrown round such blasphemies by the style in which they are stated, has 
been lent to them by the elegant Latinity of this writer. Among the high 
Calvinist doctrines, of which, (though held, as he admits, by " Viri docti" of 
nis sect,) Witsius himself disapproves, are the following — that God can see 
no sin in believers, — that they contract no guilt by new crimes, nor can any 
crimes lie heavy on their consciences, — that David himself never complained of 
the weight of sin upon his mind, &c. — " Nee .Davidem ex vero de peccati sibi 
incumbentis onere conquestum esse." Among the opinions which Witsius 
fully adopts, are such as the following, — Because believers are just through 
the justice of Christ, they are equally just with Christ himself, — the justice of 
the Elect being the very justice itself of Christ. " Gluia justi sunt per jus- 

titiam Christi, aeque justos esse ac ipse Christus quam justitia 

Electorum sit ipsissima Christi justitia." The manner in which God's 
tolerance of the sins of the Elect is explained by these fanatics, affords a 
highly characteristic sample of their presumption and impiety. God sees, 
they allow, the sins of believers, but does not see them with an eye to con- 
demnation or punishment : the stain still remains in his sight, but without 
the guilt. — " Non intuetur sic ut propter ilia condemnare eos instituat . . . 
. . . tollitur (peccatum) non quo ad maculum sed ad reatum." To illus- 
trate this relative position of God and his Elect Charnock compares it to an 
account-book, in which the old score, though marked off, and no longer due, 
is still legible. — " Dcbitum tale legi fortasse potest : exisi non potest." 
O 



226 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



' tolerabiles ineptiae,' children's sport in comparison ! How much 
less an evil was it, think ye, to bow at the name of Jesus than to 
deny, to blaspheme the name of Jesus?' 11 (2 Pet. ii, 1.) 

" Would it be believed," said the great Hebraist, Dr. Light 
foot,* who also preached before the House of Commons, " that, in 
so short a time, after so solemn an obligation, and the Parliament 
that brought on the Covenant sitting, the Covenant should be so 
forgot as we dolefully see daily that it is ? We vowed against 
Error, Heresy and Schism, and swore to the God of Truth and 
Peace, to the utmost of our power to extirpate them and to root 
them out. These stones and walls and pillars were witnesses of 
our solemn engagement. And now, if the Lord should come to 
inquire what we have done according to this vow and covenant, 
I am amazed to think what the Lord would find amongst us. 
Would he not find ten schisms now for one then, twenty heresies 
now for one at that time, and forty errors now for one when we 
swore against them ?" 

The very same results, both as regards the distracting varieties 
of heresy, and the corrupting influence of Antinomian doctrines, 
appear from the avowals and lamentations of most of the emi- 
nent writers of Germany, to have taken place at the same period 
in that equally sect-ridden country. Indeed, the parallel between 
the two cases is in this instance, as in most others, complete. 
" The Church of God," says a German writer quoted by Walch, 
" is surrounded with a thousand troubles ; the wolves are quar- 
tered in the fold ; almost every one now opposes the truth ; and 
by false preachers the world is deceived. The Anabaptist's 
guile, the Quaker's demure mood, the Chiliast fanaticism, and 
Bohme's giddy spirit begins, in these times, again to renew itself. 
The Pietist crew storms in perforce. These, these are they who 
would regenerate the world by their false holiness, who bring 
God's house into ten thousand ills, and sow in God's field the 
filth of Belial." 

" The doctrine of justification by faith alone," says the pious 
Spener, "is a holy doctrine, and we should not think it too much 
to shed our blood for it. But when the great careless multitude 
so shamefully abuse it, that, even while continuing in sin and its 
service, they still console themselves that they shall attain eternal 
life by faith alone, will live and die in dependance upon this, — 
then is such doctrine (which many entertain in order that they 
may still indulge their fleshly mind and their careless security) 
not a true but a false doctrine ; for it is a shameful perversion 

* We have here another instance of a profound inquirer into Christian 
antiquity bearing full testimony to the truth of a great Catholic tenet ;— -this 
learned man being of opinion, with the Catholics, that the keys were given 
to Peter exclusively of the other Apostles. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



227 



01 the truth And so it is with other points. So that 

we have not only ground to complain of evil lives, but that, with 
all these discourses about faith, very little faith is left, nay- thai 
most are wholly ignorant what faith is." 



CHAPTER L. 

Parallel between the Protestanism of Germany and of England continued. — • 
Infidel writers. — Sceptical English Divines — South, Sherlock, and Bur- 
nett.— Extraordinary work of the latter. — Socinianism of Hoadly, Balguy, 
Hey, &c. — Closing stage of the Parallel. — Testimonies to the increasing 
irreligion of England. 

Such a course of affairs, moral and theological, as I have been 
describing, could not but lead in the end to fatal results ; and 
though, of the two countries destined thus to one common fate, 
Germany has been the more rapid in reaching the catastrophe, 
England was the first to feel and give the downward impulse. 
The natural fruits of all this abuse and degradation of religion 
soon manifested themselves, in the latter country, by a series of 
the most deliberate and systematic attacks upon Christianity 
that have ever been hazarded by infidels, since first the light of 
the Gospel broke on this world. With such vigor were these 
impious assaults carried on, that, in the successive productions, 
from the year 1650, of Hobbes, Toland, Collins, Morgan, Wool- 
ston, Tindall, and Chubb, all the arguments of Deism may be 
said to have been exhausted ; — Voltaire himself having been 
indebted for the keenest of his anti-Christian weapons to the 
destructive armory of these acute English free-thinkers. 

To them also, far more than to the French philosophers, or 
even to the example of the infidel court of Frederick the Great, 
has Germany to attribute the impulse given to her literature at 
the commencement of the eighteenth century, — an impulse, 
seconded but too willingly by her own Rationalizing divines, and 
ending, as we have seen, in the almost total extinction of her 
religion. Thus, by a signal retribution, as Germany had, by 
her example, been the means of Protestantizing England, so 
England has, in return, helped to unchristianize Germany.* 

* The fatal pre-eminence of being foremost in the ranks of infidelity, is 
thus assigned to the English writers by Mosheim : — "There is no country in 
Europe where infidelity has not exhibited its poison ; and scarcely any de- 
nomination of Christians among whom we may not find several persons who 
either aim at the total extinction of all religion, or at least endeavor to in- 
validate the authority of the Christian system. Some carry on these unhappy 
attempts in an open manner; others, under the mask of a Christian pro- 
fession ; but nowhere have these enemies of the purest religion, and consequently 
of mankind, whom it was intended to render pure and happy, appeared with more 
effrontery and insolence, than under the governments of Great Britain and the 



228 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



I have already remarked that the Reformed Church, on the 
continent, from being much less concentrated than the Lutheran, 
as well as less accustomed to the restraints of fixed formularies 
of faith, lay proportionately more open to the inroads of belief ; 
and, in that sort of security against innovation which Confessions 
and Articles afford, the Church of England was no less strongly 
intrenched than the Lutheran. Even into this preserve of or- 
thodoxy, however, strict as was the "divinity that hedged it," 
the effects of the reaction produced by the excesses of Puritanism 
began visibly to extend themselves ; — insomuch that, before the 
close of that century, the University of Oxford had to condemn, 
by a Decree of the Vice-Chancellor, as " false, impious and he- 
retical," certain doctrines, concerning the Godhead, maintained 
publicly by a Dean of St. Paul's !* 

The controversy in which this Decree had its origin is memo- 
rable in the annals of English theology ; and not the less so from 
the fact that Dr. South, with whom the University sided, on the 
occasion, was as little orthodox, on the subject, as his Tritheist 
opponent ; for while the latter (Dr. Sherlock) maintained that 
the three Persons in the Trinity are three distinct minds or spi- 
rits,"}" and three individual substances, Doctor South destroyed 
the triple Personality altogether, and, in supposing but one sub- 
stance, with something like three modes of existence, fell into 
downright Sabellianism. 

The language, indeed, of this latter sprightly divine, on more 
than one solemn topic, would not have been ill-suited to the pres- 
ent Rationalist meridian of Germany ; and, on the subject of 
the Book of Revelations, not even Semler himself, in all the 
wantonness of his school, has ventured to express himself so ir- 
reverently as did this chaplain of the Protestant champion, Will- 
iam III, who speaks of it, in one of his Sermons, as " a mys 
terious, extraordinary book, which, perhaps, the more 'tis studied, 

United Provinces. In England, more especially, it is not uncommon to meet 
with books, in which not only the doctrines of the Gospel, but also the per- 
fections of the Deity and the solemn obligations of piety and virtue are im- 
pudently called into question and turned into derision." 

* Dr. Sherlock. The Decree was levelled not directly at Sherlock himself, 
but at a clergyman of Oxford, who had preached his doctrine. 

f Doctor Wallis represents Sherlock as being of opinion that the Three 
Spirits are as " really distinct as Peter, James, and John, and one God only, 
as they are mutually conscious." Wallis himself, in explaining his own 
view of the doctrine, is fully as Sabellian as South. " Whereas Persona," 
he says, " in its true and ancient sense, before the schoolmen put this forced 
sense upon it, [i. e. of a distinct intelligent being,] did not signify a man 
simply, but one under such and such and such circumstances, or qualifi- 
cations ; so that the same man, if capable of being qualified thus and thus 
and thus, might sustain three persons, and these three persons be the same 
man." — Letters concerning the Trinity. In another place, this celebrated 
divine tell sus gravely that " there are three somewhats" in the Trinity. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



229 



the less 'tis understood, as generally rinding a man cracked or 
making him so."* 

Nearly at the same time with the discreditable controversy 
just mentioned, appeared another and still more signal proof of 
the rapid advances of scepticism, not merely within the hallowed 
pale of Subscription itself, but, still more extraordinarily, on the 
very highways of preferment and patronage. Doctor Thomas 
Burnet, the Master of the Charter-House,f and, as was supposed, 
destined to succeed Tillotson in the see of Canterbury, published 
about this time a work called " Archasologise Philosophical," in 
which, giving it as his opinion that Philosophy should be made 

* Sermons. — While South himself indulges in such license, he accuses 
Sherlock of still greater irreverence ; and denounces his Treatise of the 
Knowledge of Christ, as " a book fraught with reflections upon God's jus- 
tice, with reference to Christ's satisfaction ;" adding, " that it may deservedly 
pass for a blasphemous libel on both." Nor can it be denied that there are 
passages in Sherlock's Treatise which fully warrant this description of it. 
For instance, Dr. Owen, the famous Calvinist, having asserted, " that in 
Christ God hath manifested the naturalness of this righteousness unto him, 
in that it was impossible that it should be diverted from sinners, without the 
interposing of a propitiation," Dr. Sherlock, in ridiculing this doctrine, gives 
way to the following indecent language: — "That is (for I can make no 
better of it) being glutted and satiated with the blood of Christ, God may par 
don as many and as great sinners as he pleases, without fear of the least 
imputation of justice.'''' Again, " The sum of which is, that God is all love and 
patience, when he hath taken his fill of revenge. As others used to say, that 
' the Devil is very good when he is pleased. 1 " 

t The example of orthodoxy set by these three responsible divines, (South, 
a Rector and King's Chaplain, Sherlock, a Dean of St. Paul's, and Burnet^ 
Master of the Charter-House,) gave birth to a lively ballad, of which I can- 
not resist the temptation of quoting a few stanzas : 

" When Preb. replied, like thunder, 
And roared out 'tw r as no wonder, 
Since Gods the Dean had three, sir, ■ 
And more by two than he, sir ; 

For he had got but one, 

For he had, &c. &c. 

" Now, while the two were raging, 
And in dispute engaging, 
The Master of the Charter 
Said both had caught a Tartar, 

For Gods, sir, there were none, &c. 

" That all the Books of Moses 
Were nothing but supposes ; 
That he deserved rebuke, sir, 
Who wrote the Pentateuch, sir — 
'Twas nothing but a sham, &c 

"That, as for Father Adam, 
With Mrs. Eve, his madam, 
And what the Serpent spoke, sir, 
'Twas nothing but a joke, sir, 

And well-invented flam, &c." 
20 



230 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



the interpreter of Scripture, (the masked battery of all infidels,) 
he proceeds to inquire into the Mosaic history of the Creation of 
the World ; and, bringing forward every argument that a learned 
scepticism could suggest, to throw doubt upon the credibility of 
the narrative, treats the whole with a degree of sarcasm and 
ridicule which would be, even in a lay infidel, offensive. 

The principle on which he attempts to account for and recon- 
cile the presumed falsehood of this history, — namely, that Moses, 
in all the details of his Cosmogony, thought only of adapting 
himself to the prejudices of the vulgar,* — is the very same that 
has, in later times, been made subservient to the explaining away 
of most of the essence of Christianity. Nor, even in this ulterior 
object, was the Reverend Doctor much behind the age of Ration- 
alism, as we find him citing, in support of the policy of thus 
humoring the false fancies of the vulgar, the examples of Christ 
and the Apostles, who, he says, in speaking on such points as a 
Future Life, the Last Judgment, and the nature of Heaven and 
Hell, did not express themselves accurately, but, on the con- 
trary, adapted their language to what they knew to be the most 
popular imaginations on these subjects. As a specimen of the 
freedom with which this divine handles such topics, I shall merely 
mention that, after demonstrating, as he supposes, the physical 
impossibility of light having been created on the first day, he 
suggests that Moses might have thought it advisable to begin his 
Hexameron with this task, lest it should seem " as if God were 
working three days in the dark ! "f 

The effects of the change produced in the actual power of the 

* Scripturam Sacram ad populi captum accomodare. 

f Ne Deus videretur per triduum operari in tenebris. — He remarks that, 
on some of the days, God is represented as doing very little, and accounts 
for this disproportionate activity by the supposition that Moses, intending, 
from the first, to institute the Sabbath, thus purposely spun out the task, so 
as to make God rest on the seventh day. The part of his work that gavp 
most offence, was an imaginary dialogue between Eve and the Serpent, and 
this, in a second edition of his book, published at Amsterdam, he omitted • 
as well as his irreverent remark on the sewing of the fig-leaves together, — 
" Behold the first rudiments of the tailor's art !" En primordia artis sutoriae 
Such was the decorous divine who, but for this unlucky production, woulo* 
have succeeded, it was supposed, Tillotson, as Archbishop of Canterbury !- 
Tillotson himself was, it is well known, suspected of more than a leaning ta 
Socinianism, and the laudatory terms in which he speaks of the learning and 
candor of the followers of that creed might well induce such a suspicion. 
However successfully, indeed, he may be thought to have cleared himself 
from the imputation, it is no small proof of, at least, the tendency of some 
of his doctrine in that direction, that Leslie, in one of his controversial works, 
was able to pass off whole pages of Tillotson's Sermon on Hell Torments, 
as from the pen of a Socinian writer. " Because you could not," says Em- 
lyn, in his answer to Leslie, "raise odium enough from their own (the So- 
cinians') writings, you pick up any odious thing, even out of the writings ot 
their very opposers, and then make your Socinian to speak it, and this with- 
out naming the author from whom you took the passage." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



231 



Crown, at the Revolution, by substituting patronage and the 
force of influence for the bare sceptre of prerogative, have been 
felt in none of those channels through which the Royal Pactolus 
has since continued to flow, more abundantly than in the Church : 
— and thus, in addition to whatever guard against innovation the 
penfold of Subscription may have supplied, a new and still more 
powerful incentive to orthodoxy has been found in the grandeur 
and opulence that glitter within its pale. Still so prone and irre- 
sistible is the tendency of Protestantism to strip itself of every 
shred of doctrine, and reason away all mysteries, that notwith- 
standing the countless worldly advantages which a Church, rich 
in such bribes, holds out, not only has lay dissent from her com- 
munion increased to such an extent as threatens, before long, to 
" push her from her stool," but even her own divines, the very 
sentinels of the Establishment, have gone on undermining the 
foundations of her faith, and surrendering, one by one, its strong- 
est outposts, as if to prepare her for that fall, in which her sisters 
of Germany have but a short space preceded her. 

Nor is it so much to the Burnets and the Whistons, who, 
from too much honesty, overleap the Church fence, as to the 
Hoadlys and Balguys, who keep insidiously within it, that the 
main mischief is to be attributed. Of the success of the two 
last-mentioned divines, in Socinianizing the Church of England 
Sacraments, I have already more than once spoken ; and though 
they did not openly carry the principle any further, the close 
friendship which Hoadly maintained with Samuel Clarke, as 
well as the earnestness with which, in his life of that distin 
guished man, he defends him against the charge of having re 
tracted his heretical notions, concerning the Trinity, leave little 
doubt that the Bishop's own views on that subject were, at least, 
equally heterodox. 

The language of Doctor Balguy, in its anti-mysterious and 
rationalizing tendency, was even more explicit than that of his 
friend and patron, the Bishop. The very argument, indeed, ad- 
vanced by the infidel, Toland, to prove that Christianity is not 
mysterious, — namely, that it professes to be a revelation, and 
that any thing revealed can no longer be mysterious, — is thus 
brought forward, at second hand, by the beneficed Dr. Balguy : 
«' It is no ways essential to a mystery to be ill understood : the 
word evidently refers to men's past ignorance, not their pres- 
ent. In this sense, the revelation of a mystery destroys the very 
being of it. The moment it becomes an article of belief, it is 
mysterious no longer.* 

This is manifestly mere Socinianism in disguise ; for, to say 
that the moment a doctrine becomes an article of belief it is 
* Discourses, by T. Balguy, D. D, 



232 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



mysterious no longer, is but another mode of asserting the main 
position of the Rationalist, that, if a doctrine is mysterious, it 
cannot become an article of belief. The whole of Dr. Balguy's 
language, on such subjects, is of the same insidious description ; 
though occasionally, as in the following passage of one of his 
Charges, the mask is somewhat more boldly lifted : — " It is our 
business," he says, "not to swell out the slender articles of belief 
contained in Scripture by mere human inventions ; and, least of 
all, to censure and persecute our brethren, perhaps for no other 
reason than because their nonsense and ours wear a different 
dress."* 

As a clue to the meaning insinuated in these suspicious sen- 
tences, I shall add another remarkable passage of the same clever 
divine, in which his admission of the Pagan origin assigned by 
Priestly and others to the doctrine of the Trinity is far too clear 
to be mistaken : — " A man will have no cause to fear that he 
believes too little, if he believes enough to make him repent and 
obey. If we are firmly persuaded thai Jesus was sent from 
God,-\ if we are sincerely desirous to obey his laws, and hope 
for salvation in and through him, it will never be laid to our 
charge that we have misconceived certain metaphysical niceties, 
which have been drawn from obscure passages of Scripture by 
the magical operation of Pagan Philosophy." 

Such all but avowal of the worst principles of Socinianism 
from men so high in the Church, both from station and talent, 
sufficiently prepares us for what otherwise would have seemed 
wholly incredible, — an express proffer of the hand of fellowship 
to the whole body of Socinians, from no less a quarter than the 
chair of the Norrisian professor of Theology, at Cambridge !— 
In one of his otherwise most valuable Lectures, the late Dr 
Hey thus speaks : — " We and the Socinians are said to differ, 
but about what ? Not about morality or about natural religion. 
We differ only about what we do not understand, and about 
what is to be done on the part of God ; and if we allowed one 
another to use expressions at will, (and what great matter could 
that be in what might be called unmeaning words ?) we need 
never be on our guard against each other. "J 

In these few sceptical sentences, — in the chill and deadly air of 

* Charge to the Clergy of an Archdeaconry. 

f It is plain that the Mahometans, who believe Christ to have been a prophet 
"sent from God," must, on the principle here laid down, be considered as 
orthodox. 

% The same learned Lecturer, in speaking of the custom, as he calls it, in 
Scripture, of mentioning Father, Son, and Holy Ghost together, says, " Did 
I pretend to understand what I say, I might be a Tritheist or an infidel ; but 
I could not worship the one, true God, and acknowledge Jesus Christ to be 
the Lord of all." 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



233 



IndifFerentism that breathes through them, we recognise that last 
stage of a declining religion, before (as exemplified so signally in 
the instance of Germany,) it sinks to the flat level of total unbe- 
lief ; — that stage, where Heresy, weary of its own caprices and 
changes, and no longer fed by the false stimulus which the strife 
of controversy once lent, sinks hopelessly into the collapse of 
indifference which precedes the death of all faith. 

I have already more than once referred to the " monster of 
absurdity," — as Whitaker justly describes it, — of an avowed 
Arian, on the bench of Bishops, in the person of Dr. Clayton, 
and might here still further, did my limits permit, increase my 
list of Socinian Divines of the Church of England, by such names 
as Watson,* Warburton,f Jortin,f the late Dr. Parr,§ and others, 

* In a Charge to his Clergy, in the year 1795, this latitudinarian divine, 
speaking of the Christian doctrines, thus speaks: — "I think it safer to tell 
yon io here they are contained, than xohat they are. They are contained in the 
Bible, and if, in reading that book, your sentiments concerning the doctrines 
of Christianity should be different from those of your neighbor, or from those 
of the Church, be persuaded, on your part, that infallibility appertains as little 
to you as it does to the Church." The same Bishop, m the Catalogue ot 
Books affixed to his Theological Tracts, says, " We ought to entertain no 
other wish than that every man may be allowed, without loss of fame or for- 
tune, to think xohat he pleases and say xohat he thinks — (et sentire quae velit et 
quae sentiat dicere.") In adverting to this free and easy principle, a corres- 
pondent of the reverend author of the Parrian a very justly says, "This ex- 
traordinary passage means what is - nothing to the purpose, or what is very 
disgraceful to the Church of England. - Certainly, until a man avows him- 
self her member or teacher, she claims no authority, leaving conscience and 
disquisition free ; but when men have in almost a score of instances solemnly 
declared their assent and consent to certain Articles, does the Church then 
permit any such individual ' et sentire quoz velit et qxitz sentiat dicere V " 

] In reference to some very coarse ridicule cast by Warburton, in one of 
his letters to Hurd, on the Biblical account of Noah's Ark, Mr. Barker, in 
his amusing work, Parriana, says, " Should William Hone, the bookseller, 
have been tried for political parodies, when Bishop Warburton could write 
m this manner about Biblical history ?" 

| The writer of a letter addressed to Gilbert Wakefield, and published in 
his Memoirs, tells us that " Jortin professed himself a doubter about the 
Trinity;" and adds, "he had a mind far above worldly views ; yet, whether 
from a desire to be useful in his profession, or any other good motive, (it cer- 
tainly was some good motive,) he subscribed repeatedly both before and after 
this profession." In confirmation of this account of his opinions, we find 
Jortin, in his Miscellanies, accusing those who adopt the high Trinitarian 
doctrine, of " making Jesus Christ his own Father and his own Son." What 
this ingenious divine thought, in general, of the Church to which he so re. 
peatedly subscribed, may be collected from the following passage: — "Bacon 
says, ' if St. John were to write an Epistle to the Church of England, as he 
did to that of Asia, it would surely contain this clause, I have a fexo things 
against thee.'' I am afraid the clause would be, I have not a fexo things 
against thee?' 1 — Jortin. 

§ " Doctor Parr's avowal," says Mr. Barker, " of the coincidence of his 
own opinion with those of Bishop Hoadly, Dr. Bell, and Dr. Taylor, on the 
Real Presence, seems to confirm Mr. Gibbon's assertion of the actual prev- 
alence, among the Reformed Churches, of the opinion of Zwinglius, that the 

20* 



234 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



— showing how irresistibly, in the face of all pledges and bribes, 
of all restraints on conscience and baits to cupidity, the sceptical 
spirit of Protestantism* continues to hurry on in its downward 
career to that dark plunge into infidelity, which full as surely 
awaits it as doth the rush down the steep await the Niagara in 
its course. 

Having already, however, outgone the limits which I had al- 
lowed myself for this sketch, I shall here only add that the re- 
markable parallel which I have proved so clearly to have ex- 
isted, throughout every stage of their respective careers, between 
the Protestantism of Germany and that of England, has received, 
even while I write, an additional and, I might say, Crowning 
step in the proposal recently made for a coalition between the 
Church of England and the Dissenters. This companion pic- 
ture, as it may be called, to the memorable compromise between 
the Lutherans and Calvinists of Germany, owes its first outline 
to a Church of England divine, of high character and attain- 
ments,"]* who grounds his views of the expediency and even ur- 

Sacrament of the Altar is no more than a spiritual communion, a simple me- 
morial of Christ's death and passion." — Parriana. The following anecdotes, 
from the same work, respecting Dr. Parr, are curious : — " At a friend's house 
in Norwich, the conversation turned upon the Christian doctrine of the Incar- 
nation. From what the Doctor said, 1 understood him to mean, that nothing 
more was intended than an ordinary birth. I took a much higher position, 
and, convinced of the strength of my ground, asked him whether it was 
possible that the Evangelist, in penning the sentence ' The word was made 
flesh,' &c, could mean no more than the conception and birth of a mere hu- 
man being? — Without pursuing the subject, he merely said, 'You are right, 
you are right !' I had once the pleasure of driving the Doctor a few miles into 
the country, to visit a former pupil. When we returned together, it was a 
bright starlight night, and the beauty of the scene over our heads led me to 
ask him, with reference to the Mosaic record, how long, in his opinion, those 
orbs had rolled and glittered. He made some remarks on the term (created) 
employed by the sacred penman, distinguishing between creation, strictly 
understood, and formation, or putting the then chaos into its present order. 
I did not then admire the distinction which throws back the creation to an 
indefinite period, and thrusts the Creator from what seems his proper place ; 
and if Moses should fail us here, and the same mode of criticism be adopted 
in other parts of Scripture, I fear we shall have no proof of the creation of 
the material world, at least." 

* Doctor Parr having, as it appears, intimated that Bishop Porteus had 
been a Socinian before he came to the mitre, the British Critic for January, 
1828, in taking up the cause of the latter, says : "That the calumniator of 
Porteus should be tire panegyrist of such prelates as Clayton and Hoadly, is 
a mere matter of course. But Doctor Parr could only admire at a distance 
their good fortune which threw them on those happier "days when it was per- 
mitted to an Arian and a Socinian to avow their principles and yet to retain 
their mitres. " 

f Dr. Arnold. — The following is an extract from the Rev. Doctor's Pamph- 
let : — " We are by no means bound to inquire, whether all who pray to Christ 
entertain exactly the same ideas of his nature. I believe that Arianism in- 
volves in it some very erroneous notions as to the object of religious worship : 
but if an Arian will join in our worship of Christ, and will call him Lord and 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



235 



gency of such a step, both on the extent to which dissent from 
the Established Church prevails, and the reconcileable nature 
of the doctrines out of which that dissent arises. That this pen- 
ultimate scene of the drama must before long arrive, none who 
read the ,signs of the times aright can harbor a single doubt ; and 
some notion may be formed of the amount of sacrifice that will, 
in such case, be required of the Church, by her new allies, from 
the following items of what one of her own living divines con- 
siders objectionable in her ritual : — 

" What," asks the Rev. Mr. Riland, " do we gain by the party 
spirit of the Preface to the Liturgy : the ill selection of proper 
lessons, epistles, and gospels ; the retention of legendary names 
and allusions in the calendar ; the lection of the Apocrypha and 
the omission of the Apocalypse ; the mention of feasts and fasts 
never observed ; the repetition of the Paternoster, Kyrie Eleison, 
and Gloria Patri ; the wearisome length of the services ; the re- 
dundance and assumptions in the state prayers ; the unsatisfac- 
toriness of the three creeds ; the disputable character of the bap- 
tismal and the burial offices ; the incompleteness and dubious 
construction of the catechism, and of the order of confirmation ; 
the inapplicable nature and absolution of the visitation of the 
sick ; the imperfection of the commination service ; the discord- 
ance between the Prayer-Book and Bible translation of the 
Psalms ; the contumelious and offensive language of the state 
services; and, added to all these sources of weakness, similar 
causes of inefficiency in the Articles and Homilies !" — Riland. 

While such are the symptoms, so formidably similar to all 
that occurred in Germany, of the advance of indifferentism and 
scepticism among the Clergy of this country, we have the au- 
thority of the Clergy themselves for the progress of the same 
demoralizing principles among the Laity. " Infidelity," says 
Bishop Watson, in his Apology for the Bible, " is a rank weed ; 
it threatens to overspread the land ; its root is principally found 
among the great and opulent." In the same manner Bishop 
Prettyman complains, in one of his Charges, " that the charac^ 
teristics of the present times are confessedly incredulity, and an 
unprecedented indifference to the religion of Christ." — And 
Bishop Barrington said, in 1797, " Even in this country there is 
an almost universal lukewarmness, respecting the essentials of 
religion." 

At the same time, too, that these and other eminent Church 

God, there is neither wisdom nor charity in insisting that he shall explain 
what he means by these terms ; nor in questioning the strength and sincerity 
of his faith in his Saviour, because he makes too great a distinction between 
the divinity of the Father, and that which he allows to be the attribute of the 
Son." 



236 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



of England authorities* bear such testimony to the irreligion of 
the higher classes of the country, we find in the reports of Home 
Missionaries and other such sources an equally lamentable pic- 
ture of the demoralization of the lower. 

At the first annual meeting of the Parent Home Missionary 
Society, in 1820, it is stated, in reference to Northumberland, 
Cumberland, Durham, and part of Lancashire, that " darkness 
covers this part of England, and gross darkness the people :" — 
while the County of Worcester, it is said, may, " in a moral 
light, be regarded as a waste, howling wilderness." In the same 
Report, Staffordshire is stated to contain three hundred thousand 
inhabitants, " the greater part of whom sit in darkness and the 
gloomy shades of overspreading death." Again, Oxfordshire, 
we are told, presents a " moral wilderness of awful dimensions,'' 
and, in a part of Berkshire, " the villages are in a state of com- 
plete mental darkness." 

In a second Report of the same Society, it is stated that Mr. 
Sparkes preached in four places which were "moral wildernesses, 
and knew nothing of evangelical truth ;" and in the third Report, 
one of the Missionaries says of his station, " I verily believe that 
this is the worst place under the heavens, for men, women and 
children, seem to glory in blaspheming the Lord !" 



CHAPTER LI. 

Return to Ireland. — Visit to Townsend-street Chapel. — Uncertainty and 
unsafety of the Scriptures, as a sole rule of Faith: — Proofs. — Authority of 
the Church. — Faith or Reason. — Catholic or Deist. — Final resolution. 

On the 23d of April, 1830, — completing just a year and a 
week from the date of that memorable evening, when, in my 
chambers, up two pair of stairs, Trinity College, I declared so 
emphatically, " I will be a Protestant," — I found myself once 
more safe landed on Irish ground, and, I need hardly add, a far 
better and honester Catholic than when I left it. That disrep- 
utable hankering after the fleshpots of Ballymudragget, which 
had so long blinded me to the light of truth, or rather tempted 

* The writers of the British Critic, who, to do them but justice, defend ihe 
interests of their religion with a degree of zeal and ability which is rare 
imong the theologians of this age, thus acknowledge and deplore the state 
of Protestant England as hastening fast to a similar doom with that of Pro- 
testant Germany : — "There is quite enough of infidelity amongst us already, 
Liberal principles, that is, no fixed principles whatever, are professed in every 
quarter ; and, in spite of the apparent tranquillity which reigns around, the 
day may not be distant, in which there will be as little belief amongst the gentle 
men of England, as there is now amongst the philosophers of Germany, — that 
is, none at all. n 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



237 



me, with that light full before me, to turn my back upon its 
beams, was now cast away with scorn and loathing from my 
onind ; and the very first Sunday after my arrival, beheld me 
once more in the old Townsend-street Chapel, with a conscience 
lightened of self-reproach, and a heart full of the humblest grati- 
tude to that Being whose eye had watched over me through the 
temptations with which I had had to struggle. 

On looking back to the wide field over which my inquiries had 
led me, 1 could not but see that the main source of all the her- 
esies and blasphemies which have arisen, like phantoms, along 
the pathway of Christianity, from the first moment of its ap- 
pearance in this world, lay in that free access to the perusal 
of the Scriptures and that free exercise of private judgment 
in interpreting them, which heretics have, in all ages, con- 
tended for, and the Catholic Church has, in all ages, as invari- 
ably condemned. It was, therefore, with a sigh to think how 
iong-lived and unconquerable is error, that I found, on landing 
in Ireland, the very same cry of " the Bible, the whole Bible, 
and nothing but the Bible," which the Gnostics of the second 
century first turned to the detriment of Christianity, employed 
by those far from Gnostic persons, the Lortons and Rodens of 
the nineteenth, — however unconsciously and ignorantly on theii 
parts, — to the same baleful purpose. 

The mischievous consequences of leaving the Scriptures to be 
interpreted according to individual fancy and caprice, have been 
pointed out, in opposition to the Dissenters* and the advocates 
of Bible Societies, by Dr. Balguy ? Bishop Marsh, the Rev. Mr. 
Callaghan, and other Protestant divines ; and the arguments 
advanced by them, irfrsupport of this truly Catholic view of the 
subject, are far too valuable to the cause of true morality and 
religion, to allow us to indulge in any taunts at the utter incon- 
sistency with the first and main principles of Protestantism which 
they exhibit.^ Referring for the general view of the question 
to these writers, I shall here employ the brief space that remains 
to me in endeavoring to show, by a few facts and authorities, 
that the Scriptures, as a rule of faith, cannot be otherwise than 
obscure, uncertain, and unsafe, without the aid of that guidance 
which Tradition alone can supply, and which the Church, as the 
depository of all Christian Tradition, alone can furnish. 

* " We find as yet," says Dr. Owen, speaking of himself and his brother 
nonconformists, " no arrows' shot against us but such as are gathered up in the 
fields, shot against them that use them out of the Roman quiver." — Inquiry 
into the Origin and Institution of Churches. 

j A shrewd Catholic clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Gandolphy, did not fail to 
remind Bishop Marsh of this inconsistency : — " This," says the Reverend 
gentleman, "is exactly the steady, sober language which the Catholics have 
been using for two hundred vears, whilst the Reformers have run mad with 
the Bible fever. r 



238 



TRAVEL? OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



And, first, — to begin with the difficulties which uninstruet^d 
and unguided Reason has to encounter in the main, preliminary 
point of understanding the meaning of Scripture,- — " Open your 
Bibles," says Dr. Balguy ; " take the first page that occurs in 
either Testament, and tell me, without disguise, is there nothing 
in it too hard for your understanding ? If you find all before you 
clear and easy, you may thank God for giving you a privilege 
which he has denied to so many thousands of sincere believers." 

With respect to the Old Testament, we have but too clear a 
proof, in the utter misconception, on the part of the Jews, of the 
true nature and character of the expected Messiah, how far a 
whole nation may be deceived in interpreting the Sacred Writ- 
ings, even on a point touching their own interests, essentially and 
vitally :* and when to the difficulties and obscurities which pre- 
vented even the Jews themselves from understanding their own 
Scriptures, are added all those that, from the lapse of time, from 
the corruption of copies, from our comparative ignorance of the 
anguage and the incorrectness of translators,! have since gath- 
ered round the meaning of the text, it is surely little less than 
utter madness to assert that the ordinary race of mankind should 
be left to sift and distort to their own fancies and whims a series 
of records left so awfully open to misapprehension. 

Let us but hear what Lowth, in recommending a revision of 
the Vulgar Translation of the Old Testament, says of the state 
of the Hebrew text on which that translation is founded : — 
" With regard to the Old Testament, the Church of Christ is no 
longer a slave to the synagogue, nor does the Christian inter- 
preter blindly follow those blind guides^he Jewish teachers. 

* The Jews, too, after having thus rejected the real Messiah, suffered 
themselves to be deceived by several impostors who usurped that title ; and 
the writer of a Dissertation on the subject (quoted by Gr£goire) counts no 
less than seventeen different false Messiahs from Bar Barcochebaz down to 
Zabbathai Zevi who made the eighteenth. 

f All the great German Reformers accused each other of misinterpreting 
and mistranslating the Scriptures. Beza found fault with the translation by 
GEcolampadius. Castalio condemned Beza's version, and Molinaeus con- 
demned both Beza's and Castalio's. Zwinglius charged Luther with cor- 
rupting the word of God, while Luther advanced the same chai-ge against 
Munzer. In a petition addressed to James I, by some zealous Protestants, 
it is stated, " our Translation of the Psalms, comprised in our Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, doth in addition, subtraction and alterations, differ from the truth 
of the Hebrew in at least two hundred places." The Ministers of the Lincoln 
Diocese, addressing also the King, pronounced the English Translation of 
the Bible to be " a translation which is absurd and senseless, perverting in 
many places the meaning of the Holy Ghost;" — and Broughton, a red-hot 
Protestant, in his Advertisements of Corruptions, tells the Bishops, that 
" their public translation of Scripture into English is such as that it perverts 
the texts of the Old Testament in eight hundred and forty places, and that 
it causes millions of millions to reject the New Testament and to run to 
eternal flames." 



IN SEARCH OP A RELIGION. 



239 



Their infallible Masora, boasted to have been an edifice raised 
by wise master-builders on the rock of divine authority, proves 
to have been framed by unskilful hands, and built on the sand ; 
its foundations have been shaken, and it now totters to its fall. 
The defects of the Hebrew text itself, — for it cannot be denied 
that it hath its defects, nor, as it has been transmitted to us by 
human means, could it possibly be without defects, — these have 
been pointed out and remedies have in part been applied to thorn, 
and may be further applied by an accurate collation of ancient 
versions and of various copies." 

While such, as regards the Old Testament,* are the vague 
and shifting sands on which the presumption of Private Judg- 
ment has to build its conclusions, the difficulties which stand in 
the way of an inquirer into the New Testament are hardly of 
a less perplexing or insurmountable nature ; nor did even the 
gross misconception of the Jews, respecting the Messiah, afford 
a much stronger proof of the fallibility of human reason, on such 
subjects, than does the total perversion of all the doctrines of the 
Gospel into which the Gnostics of the first ages were, by the 
same self-willed mode of interpreting, led. When we recollect, 
too, that the men who thus mistook or perverted the sense of 
Scripture were some of them contemporaries of the Apostles 
themselves, spoke the language of the New Testament and the 
Septuagint version, and, from being natives of the countries 
where the Gospel was first preached, possessed all those clues to 
interpretation which a knowledge of customs and manners af- 
fords, — when we see that, in spite of all such facilities towards 
the true understanding of the Word, they yet, from their rejec- 
tion of the lights of Tradition and of the authority of the Church, 
fell into the coarsest and most puerile misinterpretations of Chris- 
tian doctrine, — what other, I ask, than proportionately ruinous 
consequences are to be expected from the illiterate and pre- 
sumptuous Bible-searchers of the present day, who, to an equally 
arrogant defiance of tradition and authority, add the profoundest 
ignorance of all that even modern sciolists know upon the subject ? 

From the obscurity thus shown to exist in the meaning of 
Scripture, — an obscurity which those most qualified to see their 
way through it, have been always the foremost to acknowledge,* 

* It was the opinion of Winston that the text of the Old Testament had 
been greatly corrupted, both in the Hebrew and the Septuagint, by the Jews 
themselves, for the purpose of rendering, as he supposes, the reasoning of 
the Aposties from the Old Testament inconclusive and ridiculous. 

f For instance, Locke, in the Essay prefixed to his Commentary on the 
Epistles, says, " Though I had been conversant in these Epistles, as well as 
in other parts of the sacred Scripture, yet I found that I understood them not, 
— I mean the doctrinal and discursive parts of them." After pointing out 
what he conceives to be the reasons of this obscurity, he adds, " To these 



240 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



— flows naturally the second defect of the Sacred Volume, as a 
sole guide of faith, namely, its endless uncertainty. Those who 
have gone through the preceding pages can sufficiently form to 
themselves a notion of the endless varieties of doctrine to which 
this uncertainty has, among Protestants, given rise. Even where 
the text itself is simple and unmistakeable, the facility of evading 
its real sense in which Heresy is so practised, comes ever rea- 
dily into play. We have seen that of the words " This is my 
body," no less than two hundred different interpretations ap- 
peared before the end of the sixteenth century ; and Osiander, 
as quoted by Jeremy Taylor, asserts that there were, during the 
same period, " twenty several opinions, concerning Satisfaction, 
all drawn from the Scriptures by the men only of the Augustan 
Confession, — sixteen several opinions concerning Original Sin, 
and as many distinctions of the Sacraments as there were sects 
of men that disagreed about them !" 

Most frightful, too, is it — to all but those who, relying on 
Christ's promises to his Church, know that from her, at least, the 
spirit of Truth will never be suffered to depart — to think on what 
trivial points the great stake of salvation is made to depend by 
those who are guided in their faith by the text of Scripture alone. 
The difference of a comma, of a note of interrogation, arising 
through the carelessness of transcribers, will produce a change 
of meaning by which the eternal destiny of millions may be in- 
fluenced. We are told by Lowth, in a passage just cited, that 
the mode of interpreting the Old Testament adopted by the Ma- 
sorites is now entirely exploded, as erroneous and deceptive. 
On this mode of interpretation, nevertheless, the English Trans- 
lation of the Hebrew Scriptures is, for the greater part, founded ; 
and how great is the havoc which it makes with other parts of 
the sacred text, may be concluded from the single instance, that, 
in the Prophecy of Daniel (ix, 24, 25) it completely alters the 
nature of the prediction, — insomuch as to " make it whelly un- 
serviceable to Christians," — by putting a semicolon in a place 
where there ought to have been a comma !* 

causes of obscurity common to St. Paul with most of the other penmen of 
the several books of the New Testament, we may add those that are pecu- 
liarly owing to his style and temper." Macknight, too, remarks no less 
strongly " the obscure manner of writing used by the Apostle Paul," and his 
"dark forms of expression." But a still more formidable source of error, in 
this Apostle's style, has been glanced at by the Hon. Mr. Boyle, (Style of 
Scrip.,) who tells us that there are, in St. Paul's writings, many passages so 
penned as to contain a tacit kind of dialogue ; and that of 1hese, some parts 
have been taken as arguments, which St. Paul himself meant evidently as 
objections. 

* " Our English translators took the present Hebrew text as it is printed 
by the Masorites to be the only sense and meaning of the Old Testament, 
[n Dan. ix, 25, they put their 'athnach,' or semicolon, after the seven weeks, 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



241 



The very text, indeed, which the Protestants bring forward as 
their chief authority for the unlimited "perusal of the Scriptures, 
varies essentially in its meaning and its applicability to their 
purpose, according as the verb is taken in the imperative or the 
indicative mood, — " Search the Scriptures," or " You search the 
Scriptures," — St. Cyril being for the latter acceptation of the 
sentence, and St. Augustin, Theophylactus, and other Fathers, 
having declared for the former. If the indicative mood of the 
verb be admitted, it then becomes a question, whether a note of 
interrogation should not be added, so as to make it, " Do you 
search the Scriptures?" 

But it is on the great and vital doctrine of the Trinity that 
these grammatical uncertainties must, to all who rest their be- 
lief of that mystery on the words of Scripture alone, be the most 
awfully perplexing. One of the strongest authorities, in favor 
of the Divinity of Christ, that of Rom. ix, 5, was got rid of by 
the Socinians, by the mere substitution of a point for a comma.* 
The text in 1 Tim. iii, 16, " God was manifest in the flesh," has 
been, in like manner, withdrawn from the aid of the Trinitarians, 
by showing that the true reading is or, not Qior, — " he was 
manifest," not "God was manifest," — so that the omission of 
two letters, out of four, makes all the difference here between 
Christ's humanity and his divinity !f The reading of xvpiov, 

and thus cutting off the seven weeks from the three-score and two weekg, 
make the prophecy wholly unserviceable to Christians ; but, if they had 
placed a comma after seven weeks, and their ' athnach,' or semicolon, after 
three-score and two weeks, the number of years, viz. 483 (69 weeks) would 
exactly point out the time when the Christian Messiah came." — Johnson — 
See Rees's Cyclopaedia, art. Masora. 

* Thus printed in the Vulgate: — " Ex quibus est Christus, secundum ear- 
nem qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in saecula." — Grotius was also for 
the Socinian -reading of this passage. 

f The introduction of the word " God," in this verse, is suspected by Eras- 
mus to have been an Athanasian forgery, — " Mihi subdolet," he says, " Deum 
additum fuisse adversus Haereticos Arianos." Grotius is of the same opinion. 
The following curious particulars respecting this disputed text, will show on 
what awfully minute props the Protestant's sole Rule of Faith may depend. 
In the Alexandrine MS., to which both parties referred for the text, the Unita 
rians found only 'OS, while the Trinitarians thought they could discover u 
transverse line in the first letter, which made it 9S, i. e. 0EOE. In order to 
ascertain the matter, Dr. Berriman, who was of the orthodox interest, took 
with him two friends,1is witnesses, Messrs. Ridley and Gibson, and examined 
the manuscript, in the sun, with the assistance of a glass. His report was 
decidedly in favor of the Trinitarian reading ; and he concluded his state 
m'ent by saying that " if at any time hereafter the old line should become 
indiscernible, there never will be just reason to doubt but that the genuine 
reading of this MS. was 9S." The most curious part, however, of the whole 
transaction was that Dr. Berriman openly accused his opponent M. Wettes 
tein, with having admitted to a common friend that he saw the transverse 
line of the 0S ; and the only explanation M. Wettestein was able to make 
of his concession on this point was that, in admitting the fact, he was de 



242 



TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 



instead of Qeov, in Acts xx, 28, has precisely the same human- 
izing effect ; while the famous verse, 1 John v, 7, — that long- 
contested scriptural basis of the doctrine of a Tri-une God, — is 
now, on all sides, abandoned, as unquestionably spurious. 

What then, let me ask, remains to the Protestant who has been 
taught to acknowledge no other rule of faith than the Written 
Word, but to surrender at once all belief in a dogma of which 
the sole props are thus, one by one, taken away 1 And such 
unhappily has been the result necessarily attendant on that fatal 
rejection of the ancient authority of Tradition into which so large 
a portion of the Christian world was hurried rashly by the Refor- 
mation.* Not only at the mercy of every wind of doctrine that 
blows from all the countless points of the compass of Private 
Judgment, but depending for his faith on the various readings 
of manuscripts, on the position even of semicolons and commas, 
the Protestant loses, at every step, some hold, some footing in 
Christianity, and sees the creed of his fathers vanishing, like 
fairy money, oat of his grasp. f 

Far different are the grounds on which the Catholic Church 
asserts her claims to belief. Holding the Scriptures in one hand, 

ceived by the transverse line of an E, on the opposite page, which appeared 
through the vellum! After all, however, the Trinitarian reading is now 
universally abandoned. Jortin saw it to be untenable, and Bishop Marsh 
resigned it without a struggle. 

* Well may the learned and able Lingard ask, " Have not the Reformed 
Churches, by rejecting the authority of Tradition, destroyed in effect the au- 
thority of Scripture, taken away the certainty of religious belief, and under- 
mined the very foundations of Christianity ?" — Strictures on Dr. Marsh's 
Comparative View, 4-c. 

f How long this catastrophe has been foreseen, the following extract from 
the French Encyclopaedia will prove : — "It is certain that the most learned 
and intelligent amongst them (Protestants) have for some time made consid- 
erable advances towards the Anti-trinitarian dogmas. Add to this, the spirit 
of toleration which, happily for humanity, seems to have gained ground in all 
communions, Catholic as well as Protestant, and you have the true cause of 
tfie rapid progress Socinianism has made in our days ; of the deep roots it 
hath cast into most minds, the branches of which continually unfolding and 
extending themselves, cannot fail soon to convert Protestantism, in general, 
into perfect Socinianism." This writer falls into the common mistake (as 
does my friend, indeed, very frequently in these pages) of confounding Socin- 
ianism with Unitarianism, — an error now become almost too prevalent to be 
easily got rid of. " Unitarian (says a very ingenious and learned member 
of that body) has a general, Socinian a specific meaning ; every Socinian is 
an Unitarian, but every Unitarian is not a Socinian. An Unitarian is a 
believer in the Personal Unity of God ; a Socinian is a believer in the Per- 
sonal Unity of God, who also believes Jesus Christ to be both a man, and 
an object of religious worship." So far from Socinianism, according to its 
true sense, gaining ground, it may be pronounced, on the contrary, wholly 
extinct ; and " if the charge of idolatry," says the writer just quoted, " can 
be justly brought against any Christians, which many of us doubt, it is 
against such as hold Christ to be a man only, and yet pay hina divine honors ; 
that is, in fact, against Socinians." — Plea for Unitarian Dissenters, by Robert 
Asplani. 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



243 



fe •, points, with the other, to the ancient authority of Tradition 
— ..hat authority, under whose sanction the doctrine " delivereo 
by me Saints" has been handed down, and by which alone the 
insf ^ration of the Scriptures themselves can be authenticated. 
Fro. a this apostolical source, before a single word of the New 
Test iment was written, she received, in trust for all time, the 
imperishable deposit of the two great Christian Mysteries, the 
Trinity * and the Real Presence ; and these, through chance and 
change, and among all the defections and heresies that surround 
her, she nas maintained, in their first perfect holiness, to the 
present hour. It matters not to her safety how Heresy and 
Schism may, from time to time, raise their bold fronts against 
her power. In the very first ages of her existence, this rebel- 
lion of the Evil Principle began ; and the Ebionites denied the 
Trinity, and the Docetae the Real Presence, full as confidently as 
the Unitarians and the Zwinglians assail those bulwarks of hei 
faith in modern times. It matters not to her Unity how text- 
hunters and commentators, how all that tribe whom St. Paul 
styles <• the disputers of this world," may succeed in torturing 
the Word of God by their perverse ingenuity. That unwritten 
authority, upon which the Scriptures themselves are but a Com- 
ment, guides her, safe and triumphant, through a path high above 
all such disturbing influences. 

The strange and startling discovery, upon winch Criticism, in 
its prying course, has lately lighted, — that the three first Gospels 
are but transcriptions from some older documents, and not the 
works of the writers whose names they bear, — however calcu- 
lated it may be to strike consternation into Protestants, who find 
their sole rule of faith thus unsettled, leaves the Church which 
Christ founded and instructed still secure on her old Apostolical 
grounds. The lamp of Tradition, delivered down by the Apostles, 
at which the light of the Scriptures themselves was kindled, still 
burns, with saving lustre, in her hands ; and, were it possible 
that every vestige of the Written Word could be swept away, 
at this moment, from the earth, the Catholic Church would but. 
find herself as she was, before a syllable of the New Testament 
was written, and remembering the promise of Christ to be "with 

* " Separate not," says St. Basil, " the Holy Spirit from the Father and the 
Son : let Tradition deter you." (Homil. 24, adv. Sabell.) The following cir- 
cumstance, mentioned by Erasmus, affords a happy illustration of this point. 
Giving an account of a slight dispute which he had with Farel, respecting the 
Invocation of Saints, he says, '"I asked him, why he rejected this doctrine? 
and whether it was not because the Scriptures were silent about it?' — 'Yes,' 
said he.—' Show me, then, evidently,' said I, ' from the Scriptures, that we 
ought to invoke the Holy Ghost.'" Farel, when pressed, produced the pas- 
sage in J^hn, " These three are one ;" — but Erasmus, who was one of the 
many that reject that text, would not admit of his authority. 



244 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN 

h^r all days" would still hold on her course unfaltering and 
unchanged, the sole " source of Truth and dwelling-place of 
Faith,"* to the last. 

Here, then, under the safe shelter of this unerring authority, 
do I finally fix my resting-place, — submitting implicitly to the 
only guidance which promises peace to the soul, and convinced 
that Reason which, even in this world's affairs, proves but a 
sorry conductress, is, in all heavenly things, a rash and ruinous 
guide. The low value which it is plain our Saviour himself set on 
the inductions of human reason, sufficiently shows how little the 
faith which he came to teach w as meant to be amenable to such a 
tribunal. f The Apostle Paul denounces the " foolishness of the 
wisdom of this world," with a warmth and vehemence, which 
leave no doubt that he foresaw mischief to the cause of Chris- 
tianity from that source ; and the Holy Fathers. of the first ages, 
though so gifted with all human learning themselves, not only 
knew the nothingness of such gifts in the eyes of a Supreme 
God, but felt that Faith, paramount Faith, demanded the sacrifice 
of them all, as well as of stubborn reason itself, at the foot of th 
altar. 

" When faith is in question," says St. Ambrose, " away with 
all arguments !" — " Why do you search into what is inscrutable?'' 
asks St. Ephrem, — " Doing this, you prove your curiosity, not 
your faith." St. Chrysostom held it to be no less than blasphemy 
to attempt to judge of things divine by reason, — seeing " that 
human reasoning hath nothing in common with the Mysteries of 
God ;" and St. Cyril of Alexandria declares that " in matters of 
faith, all curiosity must cease. 

Nor is it only by these great Church authorities that such 
limits have been set to the exercise of human judgment. Two 
of the greatest masters of the faculty of reasoning that ever ex- 

* Sola Catholica Ecclesia est qua? verum cultum retinet. Hie est fons 
veritatis, hoc est domicilium fidei. — Lactant. Inst. L 4. 

f " How did Christ himself proceed ?" — says an intelligent writer — 
" Knowing that that Faith must be very wavering which is built on the sandy 
foundation of human Reason, he did not so much as once attempt to show the 
conformity of his G ospel to it ; but when Nicodemus, amazed at the strange 
doctrine of 'being born again,' demanded, 'how can these things be!' he 
only tells him that ' he spake of heavenly things' and ' what he knew,' — 

urging that as a reason for him ' not to wonder' at it He desired 

them not to believe, if they were not satisfied he came from God ; but, 
after being once convinced of that, he exacts an absolute submission ; inso- 
much that when the 'eating his flesh and drinking his blood' was as great 'a 
scandal' to some of his own disciples as it can be to modern Protestants ; 
and when they began to ask, ' How can this man give us his flesh to eat? 
he merely reiterates his assertion of the same thing, and seems to have taught 
this 'hard doctrine' then, on purpose to distinguish who they were that 
believed his authority." 

| To maTEi irao.i&CKTOv airo\virpayjiovr}rov Eivai 



IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. 



245 



isted, — the one commanding its most comprehensive range, the 
other wielding its acutest subtleties, — have alike advanced the 
same Catholic and, I may add, philosophic opinion. " We must 
not,' says the wise Lord Bacon, " submit the mysteries of Faith 
to our Reason ; and the acute Bayle agrees with him : — " Si la 
Raison etoit d'accord avec elle meme, on devroit etre plus fache 
qu'elle s'accordat mal aisement avec quelquesuns de nos articles 
de Religion ; mais c'est une coureuse qui ne sait ou s'arreter, 
et comme une autre Penelope detruit ellememe son propre 
ouvrage — { diruit, aedificat, mutat quadrata rotundis.' Elle est 
plus propre d demolir qu'd batir ; elle connoit mieux ce que les 
choses ne sont pas que ce qu'elles sont"* 

Seeing thus the judgment pronounced in Scripture, and in the 
writings of the Fathers, respecting the utter unfitness of Reason 
to be the judge of Faith, confirmed by the opinions of men so 
accomplished in all the wisdom of this world, and finding, still 
further, a but too convincing corroboration of the same truth in 
the ruin brought upon Christianity wherever Reason has been 
allowed to career through its mysteries, I could not hesitate as 
to the conclusion to which my mind should come. "Either 
Catholic or Deist," said Fenelon, " there is no other alternative 
— and the appearance which the Christian world wears, at this 
moment, fully justifies his assertion. f 

Hail, then, to thee, thou one and only true Church, which 
art alone the way of life, and in whose tabernacle alone there 
is shelter from all thb confusion of tongues. In the shadow of 

+ This keen truth is put 3ven more pointedly in the words of Lactantius, 
whom he cites: — "Ita pcixosophi quod summum fuit humanse scientiae 
assecuti sunt, ut intelligent quid non sit; illud assequi nequiverunt, ut 
dicerent quid sit." 

| Much the same process, indeed, as we know, took place in the mind of 
a celebrated searcher of the Scriptures, Doctor Priestly, must, sooner or later, 
and in a more or less degree, operate throughout a whole nation of searchers. 
Beginning, as he himself confesses, by being a Calvinist, and that of the 
strictest sort, he became afterwards a high Arian, next a low Arian, then a 
Socinian, and, in a little time, a Socinian of that lowest scheme, in which 
Christ is considered as a mere man, the son of Joseph and Mary, and 
naturally as fallible and peccable as Moses or any other prophet. Even at 
this stage, too, the Doctor honestly avowed, that " he did not know when his 
creed would be fixed." In like manner, Chillingworth, the great modern 
promoter of the cry of " the Bible, the whole Bible," &c, passed from Pro- 
testantism to Popery, from Popery back to Protestantism again, then repented 
almost immediately his reconversion, and, in the end, died, it is supposed, a 
Socinian. How far gone he was in this latter direction, even at the time 
when he wrote his famous Protestant work, appears from a letter which he 
wrote to a friend, while employed on that task, and in which, after referring 
to some ancient authorities, on the subject of the Trinity, he says, that "who- 
soever shall freely and impartially consider the matter, shall not choose but 
confess, or at least be very inclinable to believe, that the doctrine of Jlrim is 
either a truth, or at least no damnable heresy." — See Life prefixed to his Works. 

21* 



246 TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN, ETC. 

thy sacred Mysteries let my soul henceforth repose, remote alike 
from the infidel who scoffs at their darkness, and the rash be- 
liever who vainly would pry into its recesses ; — saying to both, 
in the language of St. Augustin, " Do you reason, while I won- 
der ; do you dispute, while I shall believe ; and, beholding the 
heights of Divine Power, forbear to approach its depths."* 

* Tu ratiocinare, ego miror. Tu disputa, ego credam : altitudinein v;dj«i. 
ad profundum non pervenio. — He adds, " To you who come to scrutinize 
what is inscrutable, and to investigate what cannot be investigatea, i s&y 
Stop, and Believe, — or you perish !" 



NOTES. 



Page 17. 

Ircnams, in citing the Shepherd, calls it " Scripture," from which some have 
concluded that he really held it to be Canonical: — " Illud etiam non omitten- 
dum quod Herme Pastorem velut canonicam Scripturam laudet Irengeus." 
(Massuet Dissert. Prcev. in Iren.) Lardner, however, has shown that Ire- 
naeus uses the word here merely as a "writing" or " book." 

St. Clement of Alexandria, no less than Origen, seems to have considered 
the Shepherd as a divinely inspired work. — Qeioig rotvvv r\ Swapis h tcj Ep/m 
tara. airoxaXvxpiv \a\ov<ra. — Strom. Lib. 1. 

Page 18. 

So strict a faster was St. Ambrose, that he never dined, we are told, but 
on Saturdays, on Lord's Days, and the Festivals of Martyrs. It is said that 
Monica, St. Augustin's mother, was greatly offended, on her coming to Mi- 
lan, to find Ambrose dining on the Saturday ; having observed that day to 
be kept as a solemn fast at Rome, and in other places, and therefore wonder- 
ing that it should be held as a festival at Milan. 

Page 21. 
" The Real Presence," #c. 
It is hardly necessary to say that whenever in these pages, I make use ol 
the phrase Real Presence, I mean to include also the necessary consequence 
of that miracle, Transubstantiation. Once the corporal Presence is admitted, 
the change of the substance of the Sacramental elements follows as a matter 
of course. It has been always the policy, however, of Protestants, and for 
very evident reasons, to direct their attacks solely against the absurd process, 
as they choose to term it, of Transubstantiation ; which is about as shallow 
and unfair a way of arguing, as it would be to assume the mere numerical 
difficulty attendant on the doctrine of the Trinity as the sole grounds for 
objecting to it. 

In the disputations between Catholics and Protestants in the reign of Ed- 
ward VI, the latter invariably took this unfair vantage ground ; the Catho- 
lics anxiously, but vainly, endeavoring to have the question of the Real Pres- 
ence settled, in its natural order, previously to the discussion of the question 
of Transubstantiation. Both the motives and the futility of this subterfuge 
have been thus well exposed by Bossuet : — "Pour conserver dans les coeurs 
des peuples la haine du dogme Catholique il a faller la taurner contre un au- 
tre objet que la Presence Rdelle. La Transubstantiation est maintenant le 
grand crime : ce n'est plus rien de mettr-e Jesus Christ present ; de mettre tout 
un corps dans chaque pareille ; le grand crime est d? avoir ote le pain : ce qui re* 
garde Jesus Christ est peu de chose; ce qui regarde lepain est essentielle. 

Page 23. 

"I am so far from being ashamed," says St. Augustin, " of the Cross, that 
I do not put the Cross of Christ in some hidden place, but carry it on my 
forehead." 

Page 24. 

The employment of the fish as a symbol of the name of Christ, arose from 
the word i^Ovs being composed of the initial letters of the words iVouj Xptcr- 
roj, 0u£o vios, Swr^p. In the spurious Sybilline verses there are some acros- 
t~:s beginning with these letters. For the same reason, as well as no doubt 
from their use of the rite of Baptism, Christians themselves were, in the first 



248 



NOTES. 



ages, called Fishes. " Sed nos Piscieuli," says Tertulhan, " secundun*.^d. n 
secundum nostrum Jesum Christum in aqua noscimur." 

Page 26. 

" On the subject of exclusive salvation as Catholic as need be." 

This is also the language, however, of the Protestant Church. "The 
visible Church consists of all those throughout the world who profess the true 
religion, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation." ( West- 
minster Confession, ratified by Parliament, A. D., 1649.) "Christ," says 
Bishop Pearson, "never appointed two roads to heaven, nor did he build a 
Church to save some, and another for other men's salvation. As none, then, 
were saved in the Deluge, but those who were within the ark of Noah, so 
none shall ever escape the eternal wrath of God, who belong not to the 
Church of God." — Exposition of the Creed. 

In cases of invincible ignorance or invincible necessity, the Catholic Church 
admits of exceptions to this sweeping sentence. Thus, in the Censure 
passed by the Sorbonne on Rousseau's Emile, we find it laid down : — " Tout 
homme qui est dans l'ignorance invincible des verites de la Foi ne sera 
jamais puni de Dieu pour n'avoir pas cru ces verites. Telle est la doctrine 
Chretienne et Catholique (Art. 26 — Gluant aux communions separdes de 
l'Eglise, les enfants et les simples qui vivent dans ces communions ne par- 
ticipent ni a la heresie ni au schisme ; ils en sont excuses par leur ignorance 
invincible de l'etat des choses. II n'est pas du tout impossible a ceux qu 
vivent dans des communions separdes de l'Eglise Catholique de parvenir, 
autant qu'il est nScessaire pour leur salut a la connaissance de la revelation 
Chretienne, {Art. 32)." 

The eminent Catholic Prelate, Frayssinous, thus asserts tlje same reason- 
able and charitable doctrine : " L'ignorance involontaire de la revelation 

n'est pas une faute punissable La revelation Chretienne est 

une loi positive, et il est de la nature d'une loi de n'etre obligatoire que 
lorsqu'elle est publi£e et connue." — Conferences. 

Page 33. 

" The injudicious excess of zeal which led Bonaventura," fyc. 
The Psaltery of Bonaventura is one of those monuments of extravagant 
zeal which, though constantly condemned by Catholics themselves, will as 
constantly be taken advantage of by their enemies, for the purpose of casting 
imputations on them. The late Mr. Charles Butler, in replying to the attacks 
of Mr. Southey and Dr. Philpotts, as well on the subject of this Psaltery, as 
of the Catholic hymn, Impera Redemplon, does not seem to have been aware 
that Grotius had to perform the same task before him. In reference to a 
work written by one James Laurence, this great man, writing to his brother, 
says, " In defiance of all justice, he charges the Psaltery of Bonaventura 
upon the whole body of Catholics, (though it was condemned by the Doctors 
of the Sorbonne,) and those verses to the Virgin Mary, which commence 
with Impera Redemptoii, as well as some others, which he has quoted from 
their books." 

In the same letter, with his usual enlightened candor, Grotius does justice 
to the views of the Catholics, on other essential points of their faith. " It is 
also possible," he says, " for persons in that Communion to avoid idolatry, 
by honoring the saints only as the servants of God, by using images as re- 
freshing excitements to their memories, and by venerating in the Sacrament 
that which is its principal part ; as the Council of Trent has made the Ado- 
ration of the Sacrament to be tantamount to adoring Christ in the Sacrament" 
For an account of the efforts made ineffectually by Grotius to inspire, with a 
portion of his own enlarged and conciliatory spirit, the contending parties of 
his day, the reader will do well to consult NichoWs Arminianism and Calvin? 
ism compared, — a work full of interesting reflection and research. 



NOTES. 



249 



Page 53. 

With a like view of the subject, Dr. Johnson says, that " the generality of 
mankind are neither so obstinately wicked as to deserve everlasting punish- 
ment, nor so good as to merit being admitted into the society of celestial 
spirits, and that God is therefore generously pleased to allow a middle state, 
where they may be purified by a certain degree of suffering." 

These testimonies of Paley and Johnson to the Catholic doctrine of Pur- 
gatory, suggest to me to lay before the reader a few other such candid ad~ 
missions, on the part of Protestants, of the truth of our Catholic tenets, which 
I shall here class under their respective heads, referring, for further examples, 
to Chapter XXXIV of this work. 

PROTESTANT TESTIMONIES IN FAVOR OF CATHOLIC DOCTRINES. 

Primacy of the Pope. 
The canonical grounds of the Primacy, as well as the necessity of such a 
jurisdiction for the preservation of unity, are thus strongly asserted by 
Grotius : — 

" Restitutionem Christianorum in unum idemque corpus semper optatum 
a Grotio sciunt qui eum norunt. Existimavit autem aliquando incipi a Pro- 
testantium inter se conjunctione. Postea vidit id plane fieri nequire ; quia 
prseterquam quod Calvinistorum ingenia ferme omnium ab omni pace sunt 
alienissima, Protestantes nullo inter se Communi Ecclesiastico regimine 
sociantur. Quae cause sunt cur facile partes in unum Protestantium Corpus 
coligi nequeant ; immo et cur partes aliae atque aliae sunt exsurrecturae. 
duare nunc plane sentit Grotius, et multi cum ipso, non posse Protestantes 
inter se jungi nisi simul jungantur cum iis qui Sedi Romanae cohaerent, sine 
qua. nullum sperari potest in Ecclesia Commune Regimen. Ideo optat ut ea 
divulsio quae evenit et causae di^ulsionis tollantur. Inter eas causas non est 
Primatus Episcopi Romani, secundum Cancnes, fatente Melancthone, qui eum 
Primatum etiam necessarium putat ad retinendam Unitatem." — Last Reply to 
Rivetus, Apol. Discuss. 

Grotius had held nearly the same language, with respect to what he calls 
"the force of the Primacy," in his first Reply to Rivetus : — " Quae vero est 
causa cur qui opinionibus dissident inter Catholicos, maneant eodem corpore 
non rupta communione : contra, qui inter Protestantes dissident idem faeere 
nequeant, utcumque multa de dilectione Fraterna loquantur? Hoc qui rect6 
expendent invenient quanta sit vis Primatus." — Ad. Art. 7. 

"Whosoever reads their writings will find those of the fourth and fifth ages 
giving the supremacy to the Bishop of Rome, and asserting, that to him be- 
longs the care of all Churches." — Dumoulin, Vocation of Pastors. 

"Rome, being a Church consecrated by the residence. of St. Peter, whom 
antiquity acknowledged as this Head of the Apostolic Church, might easily 
have been considered, by the Council of Chalcedon, as the Head of the 
Church." — Blondel on the Supremacy. 

In the course of some obseivations on the subject of the Papal power and 
its advantages during the middle ages, Daines Barrington says, " There was 
a great use to Europe in general, from there being a common referee in all 
national controversies, who could not himself ever think of extending hia 
dominions, though he might often make a most improper use of his power as 
a mediator." He adds, " The ancients seem to have found the same con- 
venience, in referring their disputes to the Oracle at Delphi." — Observations 
on the ancient Statutes. 

After acknowledging the uncertainty of the Scriptures as a rule of faith, a 
living writer, Dr. Arnold, continues thus:— "Aware of this state of things, 
and aware also, with characteristic wisdom, of the deadly evil of religious 
divisions, the Roman Catholic Church ascribed to the sovereign power in the 
Christian society, in every successive age, an infallible spirit of truth, whereby 



250 



NOTES. 



the real meaning ot any disputed passage of Scripture might be certainly and 
authoritatively declared ; and if the Scripture were silent, then the living 
voics of the Church might supply its place ; and being guided by the same 
Spirit which had inspired the Written Word, might pronounce upon any new 
point of controversy with a decision of no less authority." — Principles of 
Church Reform. 

Penance, Confession, fyc. 
" Even the long and tedious penances which were of old enjoined to ex 
communicated persons, were only proofs of the faithful tenderness of the 
primitive pastors towards the souls of their people. Divines, of late years, 
have labored to prove that Repentance imports nothing but an act of the 
mind ; and, 'tis true, that the repentance which fits grown men for baptism, 

does imply no more than a mere change of our resolution but that 

repentance which is required of Christians, who, fallen from grace, and run 
into habits of vice or acts of very grievous sin, is of another sort, and was 
believed, by the Guides and Fathers of the Apostolic age, to import outward 
austerities, frequent fastings, and a long course of humiliation, in public as 
well as in private, as they sufficiently showed by their constant practice. 

We have reason to believe, that when St. Paul speaks of some at 

Corinth, that ' they had not repented of the uncleanness which they had com 
mitted,' his meaning was, that they had not openly and solemnly humbled 
themselves in the face of the congregation for their crimes." — Johnson's 
Unbloody Sacrifice. 

The same writer continues, " Christians have lost the true notion of perfect 
repentance for sins after baptism, which the Primitive Church did justly be- 
lieve to consist in a long course of fasting, praying, confessing openly in the 
church, deploring and bewailing former sins .... This was the ' Repent- 
ance to salvation, never to be repented of,' which the Apostles and Primi- 
tive Fathers required of those Christians who had sinned with a high hand." 

" It is confessed, that all priests, and none but priests, have power to for 
give sins ; that private confession to a priest is a very ancient practice in the 
Church." — Bishop Montague's Gagger Gagged. 

" Our confession must be integra et perfecta, not by halves. All our sms 
must be confessed, — omnia venialia et omnia mortalia. God alone blots out 
sin : — true. But there is another.confessor that would not be neglected. He 
who would be sure of pardon, let him find a priest, and make his humble 
confession to him. Heaven waits and expects the priest's sentence here, 
and what he binds or looses, the Lord confirms in Heaven." — Bishop Spar- 
row's Sermon on Confession. 

" AVhen you find yourselves charged and oppressed . . . have recourse to 
your spiritual physician, and freely disclose the nature and malignancy ot 
your disease. Nor come to him only with such mind as you would go to a 
learned man, as one that can speak comfortable things to you, but as to 
one that hath authority delegated to him from God himself, to absolve you 
from your sins." — Chillingiooi'th. 

" Confession is an excellent institution — a check to vice. It is admirably 
calculated to win over hearts, which have been ulcerated by hatred, to for- 
giveness ; and to induce those who have been guilty of injustice, to make 
restitution."— Voltaire. 

" What restitutions and reparations does not confession produce among 
the Catholics !" — Rousseau. 

Tradition.* 

" It is evident, from the Scriptures themselves, that the whole of Christianity 
was at first delivered to the Bishops succeeding the Apostles, by oral tra- 

* On the truth of the Catholic doctrine, respecting Tradition, the reader will find 
ah that is mast cogent and convincing in Dr. Lingard's powerful Strictures upon 
Bishop Mj.rsh's Comparative View, &c. The arguments by which this eminent 



NOTES. 



2ol 



dition, and they were also commanded to keep and deliver it to their suc- 
cessors in like manner. Nor is it anywhere found in Scripture, by St. Paul 
or any other Apostle, that they would, either jointly or separately, write down 
all they had taught as necessary to salvation, or make such a complete canon 
of them, that nothing should be necessary to salvation but what should be 
found in those writings." — Dr. Brett, Tradition Necessary. 

" Here (2 Thessalon. vi,) we see plain mention of St. Paul's traditions, con- 
sequently of Apostolic Traditions, delivered by word of mouth, as well as by 
writing, and a condemnation of those who do not equally observe both." — Ibid. 

" Traditions, instituted by Christ, in point? of faith, have divine authority, 
as the written word hath : traditions from the Apostles have equal authority 
with their writings ; and no Protestant in his senses will deny that the Apos- 
tles spoke much more than is written." — Montague's Gagger Gagged. 

Dr. Waterland, observing, on the authority of Irenaeus, that "Polycarp 
had converted great numbers to the Faith by the strength of Tradition," adds 
that it " was a sensible argument, and more affecting at that time than any dis- 
pute from the bare letter of Scripture could be." — Imp. of the Doct. of the Trin. 

Prayers for the Dead, and Purgatory. 

"Let not the ancient practice of praying and making oblations for the 
Dead, be any more rejected by Protestants as unlawful. It is a practice 
received throughout the universal Church of Christ, which did ever believe it 
both pious and charitable. Many of the Fathers were of opinion, that some 
light sins, not remitted in this life, were forgiven, after death, by the inter- 
cession of the Churchin her public prayers, and especially those which were 
offered up in the celebration of the tremendous mysteries ; and it is no 
absurdity to believe so. The practice of praying for the Dead is derived, as 
Chiysostom asserts, from the Apostles." — Bishop Forbes, on Purgatory. 

" That Austin concludes, very clearly, that some souls do suffer temporal 
pains after death, cannot be denied." — Fulke's Confutation of Purgatory. 

After mentioning the different opinions of the Fathers, respecting the pur- 
gatorial process through which souls are to pass, Leibnitz thus beautifully, 
and in the true Catholic spirit, concludes : — " duidquid hujus sit, plerique 
omnes consenserunt in castigationem sive purgationem post hanc vitam, 
qualiscunque ea esset, quam ipsae animae ab excessu ex corpore, illuminate 
et conspecta tunc imprimis praeteritae vitae imperfectione, et peccati faeditate 
maxima tristitia tactae sibi accersunt libcnter, nollentque aliter ad culmen 
beatitudinis pervenire." — Systema Theulogicum. 

" There is one proof of the Propitiatory nature of the Eucharist, according 
to the sentiments of the ancient Church, which will be thought but only too 
great; and that is, the devotions used in the Liturgies, and so often spoke of 
by the Fathers, in behalf of deceased souls. There is, I suppose, no Liturgy 

divine shows that, without the aid of Tradition, the inspiration of the Scriptures 
themselves cannot be proved, are altogether unanswerable. " How." he asks, " can 
the Scriptures prove their own inspiration? It is on their inspiration that all theii 
doctrinal anthority depends. You must show that they are inspired before you can 
deduce a single point of doctrine from their testimony. If, in attempting to demon- 
strate the inspiration of any book, you pre-suppose its inspiration, you fall into a 
petitio principii ; you take for granted what you have undertaken to prove. If you 
do not pre-suppose its inspiration, then its testimony on that point is of no more au- 
thority than the testimony of any profane or ecclesiastical writer Perhaps 

it may be said that the writers appear, from the tradition of testimony, to have been 
the apostles of Christ-, that they were under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; that 
they could not teach a false doctrine; and that, of course, their writings must be 
inspired. But whence is all this information obtained? If from the tradition of tes- 
timony, it is then false that the inspiration of the Scripture can be proved from Scrip- 
ture only : if from the Scripture, then you must prove it3 inspiration before you can 
exact the belief of the reader to such assertions. Hence, I conclude, that to determine 
.he Canon or the inspiration of the Scripture from the Scripture alone, is impracti- 
cable : the knowledge of both must be. derived from Tradition. 



252 



NOTES. 



without them, and the Fathers frequently speak of them. St Chrysostoru 
mentions it as an institution of the Apostles. St. Austin asserts that such 
prayers are beneficial to those who have led lives so moderately good as to 
deserve them. Cyril, of Jerusalem, mentions a prayer for those who are 
gone to sleep before us ; and St. Cyprian mentions the denial of these 
prayers, as a censure passed upon some men by his predecessors. Tcr- 
tullian spoke of this practice as prevailing in his time, and the Constitutions 
do require Priests and people to use these sorts of devotion for the souls of 
those that die in the Faith." — Johnson's Unbloody Sacrifice. 

"Dr. Vvhitby," says the same writer, "has fully proved, in his anno- 
tations on 2 Tim. iv, 4, that the Primitive Fathers, and even the Apostles, did 
not believe that the souls ©f the Faithful are admitted into Heaven before the 
Day of Judgment. It was, I suppose, from hence concluded, that they were, 
in the interim, in a state of expectance, and were capable of an increase of 
light and refreshment. Since praying for them, while in this state, was 
nowhere forbidden, they judged it, therefore, lawful ; and, if it were lawful, 
no more need be said, — Nature will do the rest. The only use I make of it 
is, to prove that the ancients believed the Eucharist to be a Propitiatory 
Sacrifice, and therefore put up these prayers for their deceased friends, in the 
most solemn part of the Eucharistic Office, after the symbols had received 
the finishing consecration." 

" It must be admitted that there are, in Tertullian's writings, passages 
which seem to imply, that in the interval between death and the general 
resurrection, the souls of those who are destined to eternal happiness, un- 
dergo a purification from the stains which even the best men contract during 
their lives." — Bishop Kctye. 

Among Protestant testimonies to this ancient and Christian custom of 
praying for the Dead, we should not omit the two Epitaphs written for them- 
selves, by Bishop Barrow, of St. Asaph, and Mr. Thomdike, Prebendary of 
Westminster. In the Epitaph of the Bishop are the following words : — " O 
vos transeuntes in domum Domini, domum orationis, orate pro conservo 
vestro, ut inveniat misericordiam in die Domini." — " Oh ye, who pass into 
the House of the Lord, into the House of Prayer, pray for your fellow-ser- 
vant, that he may find mercy in the day of the Lord." In like manner, 
Thorndike, in his epitaph, entreats that the reader will pray for rest to his 
soul : " Tu lector requiem ei et beatam in Christo resurrectionem precare." 

Invocation of Saints. 
"If the Roman Church will declare at once that she has no othei con 
fidence in the Saints than in the living, and that in whatsoever terms her 
prayers to them may be couched, they are to be understood of simple inter- 
cession alone, that is, 'Holy Mary, pray for me to thy divine Son,' — if, I say, 
the Catholics will but declare this,* then all danger in such prayers is over." 
— Mulanus's Answer to Bossuet. 



* Such is, and ever has been, the declaration of Catholics ; as will appear from 
the following exposition of their faith on this point, given in a tract of high authority, 
entitled Roman Catholic Principles, and quoted in that standard work, " the Faith oi 
Catholics." — " Catholics are persuaded that the angels and the saints in heaven, 
replenished with charity, pray for us, the fellow-members of the latter here on earth •, 
that they rejoice in our conversion ; that, seeing God, they see and know in him all 
things suitable to their happy state ; and that God may be inclined to hear their re- 
quests made in our behalf, and, for their sakes, may grant us many favors — therefore, 
we believe, that it is good and profitable to invoke their intercession. Can this man- 
ner of invocation be more injurious to Christ , our mediator, than it is for one Christian 
to beg the prayers of another here on earth ? However, Catholics are not taught so 
to rely on the prayers of others as to neglect their own duty to God, in imploring his 
divine mercy and goodness in mortifying the deeds of the flesh ; in despising the world, 
in loving and serving God and their neighbors; in following the footsteps of Christ 
our Lord, who is the way, the truth, and the life." 

Another point upon which Catholics have, as constantly and as unavailingly, tc 



NOTES. 



253 



"I do not deny but the Saints are mediators of prayer and intercession for 
all in general. Tney interpose with God by their intercessions and mediate 
by their prayers." — Bishop Montague, Antidote. 

" Indeed, I grant that Christ is not wronged in his mediation." — Montague 
on Invocation of Saints. 

" It is no impiety to say, as Papists say, ' Holy Mary, pray for me !' — Nay, 
could I come at the Saints, I would, without any question, willingly say, 
'Holy Peter, pray for me !' I would ran with open arms, fall upon my knees, 
and desire them to pray for me. I see no absurdity in nature, no repugnancy 
at all to Scripture, much less impiety, for any man to say 'Holy Angel 
Guardian, pray for me!'" — lb. 

" I confess that Ambrose, Austin, and Jerome, did hold invocation of 
Saints to be lawful." — Fulke, Rejoinder to Bristow. 

" It is confessed that all the Fathers of both Greek and Latin Churches, 
Basil, Nazianzen, Ambrose, Jerome, Austin, Chrysostom, Leo, and all after 
their time, have spoken to the Saints and desired their assistance." — Thorn- 
dyke's Epilogue. 

The Sacrifice in the Eucharist. 

" The Sacrifice of the Supper is not only propitiatory and may be offered 
up for the remission of our daily sins, but impetratory, and may be rightly 
offered to obtain all blessings ; and, though the Scripture does not teach 
this in express words, yet the Holy Fathers, with unanimous consent, have 
thus understood the Scriptures, as has been demonstrated by many and must 
be evident to all." — Bishop Forbes, de Eucharistia. 

" It seems strange to you ' that a matter of so great importance, as I seem 
to make this Sacrifice to be, should have so little evidence in God's word and 
antiquity, and depend merely upon certain conjectures.' As for Scripture, 
if you mean the name of Sacrifice, neither is the name Sacrament nor Eucha- 
rist (according to our expositions) there to be found, — no more than fywowtos, 
— yet may not the thing be ? But when you speak of so little evidence to be 
found in antiquity, I cannot but think such an affirmation far more strange 
than you can possibly think my opinion. For, what is there in Christianity 



disclaim the gross notions imputed to them, is their veneration for Holy Pictures and 
Images — a veneration which they give, " Not as believing," says the Council of 
Trent, " that there is in such pictures and images any divinity or virtue for which 
they should be honored ; or that any thing is to be asked of them, or any trust to be 
placed in them, as the Gentiles once did on their idols : but because the honor given 
to pictures is referred to the Prototypes which they represent." In the Catechism 
of the Roman Catholics, one of the questions asked is, "Whether the Catholic9 
pray to images?" — The answer to which is, " No, they do not ;" and this reason is 
added, " because they neither can see, nor hear, nor help us." So far, indeed, from 
sanctioning the adoration of Images, the Catholics are accustomed to repeat, every 
week, the 97th Psalm, in which are these emphatic words: " Confounded be ail 
they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols;" and every Sunday, 
at Even Song, they repeat Psalm cxv, equally denouncing idols, and containing a 
sort of imprecation on idolaters, that "all" men may become like them (the idols) 
who make them and put their trust in them." 

The great Leibnitz thus philosophically explains and defends the Catholic reve- 
rence for images : — " Posito igitur nullam aliamadmitti venerationem imaginum quam 
^ure sitveneratio prototypi coram imagine, nan magis in ea erit idololatria quam in 
veneratione quae Deo et Christo exhibetur, sanctissimo ejus nomine pronuntiato. 
Nam et nomina sunt notas et quidem imaginibus longe inferiores, rem enim multo 

minus repreesentant coram imagine externa adorare non magis repre- 

hendendum esse quam adorare coram imagine interna quae in phanfasia nostra de- 
picta est: nnllus enim alius usus externa? imaginis quam ut interna expressior fiat." 
—Sy sterna Theologicum. 

We find Archbishop Wake, as quoted by Middleton, saying, " he did not scruple 
to declare that, as to the honors due to the genuine relics of the Martyrs or Apostles, 
no Protestant would ever refuse whatever the Primitive Chunhos paid to them." 

22 



254 



NOTES. 



for which more antiquity can be brought than for this ?...... Eusebi j? 

Altkircherus, a Calvinist, printed at Newstadt, in the Palatinate, in 1584 and 
1591, De Mystico et incruento Ecclesia Sacrificio, in which he says, 'This 
was always the standing, accordant, and unanimous opinion of all the ancient 
Fathers of the Church, that the memorial of the passion and death of Christ, 
in the Holy Supper instituted by him, contained also in itself the commenda- 
tion of a Sacrifice." — Mede, Letter to Twisse. 

" I suppose all Protestants will allow that Christ's sacrifice was intended 
for the expiation of sin ; and, if so, they cannot think it strange that it was 
offered before it was slain, and that by the Priest himself— for it is clear this 
was the method prescribed by Moses of old. It will presently be shown thai 
the body and blood of Christ were intended as a sacrifice of consecration, as 
well as expiation, and that therefore the proper time of offering them was be- 
fore he was actually slain as a sacrifice .... And if Christ gave or offered 
himself in the Eucharist, I presume I need not labor to prove that Priests are 
to do what he then did. We have his express commands to do or offer this 
in Remembrance of him, and I have abundantly demonstrated that this was 
the constant, unanimous judgment of the Primitive Church for the first four 
hundred years after Christ." — Johnson, Unbloody Sacrifice. 

" There is yet a more evident proof to be found in the Scripture, even in 
the very words of the Institution, to prove that we are required to offer the 
bread and wine to God, when we celebrate the Holy Eucharist, 'This do n. 
remembrance of me.' Dr. Hickes, in his Christian Priesthood, p. 58, &c 
proves, by a great many instances, that the word irouiv, to do, also signifies" 
to offer, and is very frequently used both by profane authors, and by the Greek 
translators of the Old Testament, in that sense; and so** also is the Latin 
word facere. I will transcribe a few of those instances, and those who desire 
more may consult Dr. Hickes's book. 

"Herodotus, lib. 1, cap. cxxxii, says, 'Without one of the Magi, it is not 
lawful for them, touiv, to offer a sacrifice.' And in the Septuagint transla- 
tion of the Old Testament, which all the learned know is followed by the 
writers of the New Testament, even where they cite the words and speeches 
of our SavLur, it is so used ; as Exod. xxix, 36, ' Thou shalt offer, Troirjasis, 
a bullock ;' verse 38, 'This is that which, irotriaeis, thou shalt offer upon the 
altar;' verse 39, ' The one lamb, notrjaeis, thou shalt offer in the morning, and 
the other lamb, iroiriaeis, thou shalt offer in the evening.' So likewise Exod. 
x, 25. In all which places the word, which is translated offer, and which in 
this last text is translated sacrifice, and which in these and many o'.her places 
will bear no other sense, is the very word which in the institution of the Eu- 
charist is translated Do. And even our English translators have sometimes 
used the word Do in this sacrificial sense ; as particularly Lev. iv, 20. Here 
our English translation is, ' And he shall do with the bullock, as he did with 
the bullock for a sin offering, so shall he do with this,' Here, indeed, they 
have put in the word with, without any authority. The Greek is, ' he shall 
do the bullock, as he did the bullock, so shall he do this ;' where do plainly 

signifies offer That the words of the institution, tovto troiEire, do 

this, are to be understood in this sacrificial sense, is manifest from the com- 
mand concerning the cup, which is, ' This do ye, as oft as you drink it, in 
remembrance of me.' For except we understand the Avords in such a sense, 
they will be a plain tautology. But translate it, as I have showed the words 
M ill very probably bear, ' Offer this : make an oblation or libation of this, as 
oft as ye drink it inremembrance of me,'' and the sense is very good. A Priest 
therefore is necessary and essential to the due administration of the sacrament." 
— Dr. Brett, True Sciip. Account of the Eucharist. 

For the best Catholic arguments on all the above points, I beg to refer to 
the Earl of Shrewsbury's comprehensive and able Reasons for not taking the 
Test, fyc, and Dr. Baines's lively and acute Answers to Archdeacon Dau- 
beny, &,c. 



NOTES. 



256 



Page 40. 

" The Eucharist prefigured in the offerings of the Old Latu." 
Clement of Alexandria, among the rest, expressly says, that Melchisedeck 
distributed bread and wine, as consecrated food, for a type of the Eucharist : 

rr)t f : yta<Tfi£v>fv SiSovs TptHprfv sis tvtov £V%api(TTias. — Stromat. Lib. 4. 

Page 41. 

"If it had so great poiver in the type, <$•<;." 
In the same sense, Eusebius says, " We with good reason, daily cele- 
brating the memorial of Christ's body and blood, and being dignified with a 
better victim and Hierurgy than the old people, do not think it safe to fall back 
to the former weak elements that contain symbols and Images, not the Verily." 
— ovk en baiov t)yuvn£9a Ka.T<nwTT£iv an ra -npojra xai aadcvri GT0i%£ia cvp(3o\a Kat 
tiKova, aW ovk avrr\v a\r)d£iav r£pu%ovTa. — Demonstrat. Evangel. 

Page 46. 

To Schelstrate, who held that the Discipline of the Secret was in full force 
of operation, during the second century, this instance of boldness, on the part 
of St Justin, in promulgating the doctrine of Transubstantiation to the Gen- 
tiles, appears naturally a disconcerting and puzzling fact. "Cum enim Ro- 
man am Senatum Gentilem tunc fuisse, Antoninum quoque cum ejus filiis 
Paganos extitisse, certum sit, ostendi debetquomodo, salva disciplina Arcani 
tarn clare de Baptismi ritibus ct Eucharistiae Sacramentis tractare potuerit 
Justmus." His solution of the difficulty is, that Justin was led to so daring 
a step by the necessity of vindicating the Christians against the calumnies 
of which they were then the object. 

Page 51. 

Among the clearest and strongest arguments that have been advanced as 
well for the application of John vi to the Eucharist as for the connexion of 
the Eucharist itself with the Incarnation, may be accounted those brought 
forward by the famous Bretschneider in his Treatise on the Gospel and Epis- 
tles of St. John ; nor is the opinion of this writer the less worthy of attention 
from his being himself wholly uninterested in the decision of the question, (at 
least, as it stands between Protestants and Catholics,) the object of his book 
being no less than to prove that this Gospel was not written by St. John at 
all, but by some Gnostic impostor of a later period, 

I shall here subjoin, for the learned reader, a passage from this Treatise, 
in which, comparing the account given of the Docetae by Ignatius, and the 
repugnance felt by these heretics to the doctrine of a Real Presence, with the 
announcements made by Jesus in the sixth chapter of St. John, Bretschneider 
shows that our Saviour's language was directed against their heresy, and 
had no other object than to establish, in opposition to their views, the reality 
and verity of his own flesh in the Sacrament: — 

"Non vero omnibus eandem fuisse sententiam, et Docetas nominatim 
negasse in eucharistia adesse Jesu carnem s. corpus, ex Ignatii epistnlis 
videmus, quae vel maxime non sint genuinae, tamen haud dubie scculo se- 
cundo debentur. Hie vero, et quidem epist. ad Smyrnacos c 6, p. 37, cd. 
Cleric, legitur locus, mirum in modum cum nostro congruens. Ignatius 
enim de Docetis, £VKapisnag, inquit, k<xi Trpowxns (i. e. precum in eucharistia 

facieildarum, putO rrn cTriK\r)(T£w<; rov TrvtV[xaros ayiov) dTr£%ovTai Sia to f.irj bftoXnyetv 
rrjv Ev^apiSTiav aapKa rival rov cwrripos f.jiojy 'Irjaov Xpisrou, tt)v vivsp ajtapTicov 
fl/nuiv nadovanv, r\v rt] %pisroTr}ri h iramp riy£ip£V£' al ovv dvn \tyovrcs tij Swpca rov 
deov, ov?riTovvT£s a-rruQurio-Kovo-f ovvetyr.pw 6e avrois dyairav (i. e. agapen celebrare) 
iva Kin dvasThxrovoiv. — 

" Vide vero, quam apta sint ea, quae Jesu in nostro loco tribuntur, ad refel- 
)endos ejtwmod] eucharistiae contemtores ! 

"1. Negant: mv tix a f L s Tiav o-apKa "1. Affirmavit Jesus v. 51 : h dprot 



256 



NOTES. 



bt> syai Jojcw >; &ap£ /* ow £f £ ", fya» 
Jwo-cj in-ep rijs rov Koapov $wrjc. V. 55 
^ o-api; pov dXridug csn /Jpwo-tf, /cat ro 
at^ua //ot> d\T)9o)s i$ri wotis. 

"2. Dicitur o-apl v. 51, 58, dproj, & 

EKTOV OVpaVGV KClTO-PllS, 

" 3. Docet Jesus : majorem juda- 
eorura panem coelestem Mosis qui- 
dem comedisse, sed tamen mortuos 
esse, v. 49, 58, — negat, v. 53 : iav prj 

(payers rrjv aapKa tov vlov tov dvBpuiirov, 
Kai ttit]t£ avrov to alpa, ovk e-X £r£ fal* 
in eavTois — affirmat. contra : 6 Tpoyup 

pov tt)v aapKa, Kai nivuiv pov to alpa, 
£X £L farjv aioiviov. Kai £yw urajrijo-cj av- 

tov tt] eaxaTt] fjptpa. Idem, promiv. 
50, 51, 57." 

Page 51. 

Remarking on the lame and impotent manner, in which Dr. Whitby en- 
deavors to explain away the import of 1 Cor. x, 16, 17, Johnson says, "The 
most that the learned Dr. Whitby can make out of this is, — ' The Bread 
broken and shared out may be said to be the Communion or Communication 
of the Body of Christ as being the communication of that Bread which repre- 
sented his broken body; and the Cup they severally drink of may be styled 
the Communication of the Blood of Christ, as being the communication of that 
wine that represented his bloodshed.' It may be said, it may be styled, says 
the Doctor, — by which it is intimated that, if it be so said or styled, it is in a 
very remote and improper sense, only so as to bring our Saviour and the 
Apostle off from being guilty of an absurdity." 

In reference to Whitby's attempt to class the text of " This bread is my 
body" with " the Three Branches are three days" — " the seven good kine are 
seven years," (Gen. xli, 26,) " The four great beasts are four kings," (Dan. 
vii, 17,) " Thou art that head of gold," (Dan. ii, 38,) Johnson remarks, " So 
that it should seem the bread of the Eucharist is, in the Doctor's judgment, no 
otherwise the body of Christ than the visionary Head of Gold was Nebuchad- 
lezzar !" He then adds, " Our Saviour having positively affirmed ' It is my 
jody,' Dr. Whitby, in good manners, thinks himself obliged not to contradict 
Christ Jesus, and therefore confesses it may be so said, it may be so styled, just 
ts the Three Branches are said to be Three Days. But Irenaeus, Justin 
Vlartyr, and Ignatius, did not thus expound away the life and efficacy of the 
Sacrament into mere cold and empty types." 

Page 52. 

The learned writer just referred to cites the following remarkable passage 
rom St. Augustin, confirmatory alike of the two Catholic points of belief, 
the high authority of Tradition, and the vital nature of the Eucharist, as as- 
lerted in John vi, — " The Punick Christians do rightly call Baptism nothing 
But Salvation, and the Sacrifice of the Body of Christ nothing but Life. — And 
tvhence have they this but from an ancient and, I think, apostolical Tradition, 
Dy which they hold it to be a principle innate in the Church of Christ that the 
Kingdom of Heaven (or Salvation) cannot be had without Baptism. And 
what do they hold who call the Sacrament, of the Lord's Table, Life, but that 
which was said, ' I am the Bread of Life, and except ye eat of the flesh of the 
Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.' " " This," remarks 
Johnson, "is a most ample testimony that the African Churches dia believe 
John vi to be meant of the Sacrament ; and it seems this way of speaking 
was of so long standing that St. Austin thought it an Apostolic Tradition, 
an innate principle of Christianity — ' qua. Ecclesiae Christi institutum tenent.' " 



eivat tov 'Ir/aov, tt\v virep apapriuv fjpcov 
TTcidovaav, 

"2. Appellatur cap$ Christi Supca 

TOV d£0V. 

" 3. Dicuntur adversarii eucharis- 
tiae et corporis domini o-vfrrowTts airoQ- 
vrio-Kciv, sine spe immortalitatis esse, 
cum contra si eucharistia uterentur 
efficeretur iva Kai dvasTuctv, ut etiam 
ipsi, ut reliqui fideles, resurgerent ad 
vitam. 



NOTES. 



257 



Page 53. 

"In speaking of those heretics who abstained from the Eucharist, Ignatius 
pronounces sentence upon them in these words, ' It were better for them to 
receive it, (the Eucharist,) that, through it, they might one day rise again.' 
Now, that the Eucharist is the means of a happy resurrection cannot be 
allowed to be the doctrine of Scripture, except John vi be meant of the Eu- 
charist, and therefore this Holy Martyr, when he does once and again assert 
that this is a privilege conferred on us by the Eucharist must, of consequence, 
be of this sentiment that our Saviour there spoke of his sacramental bodv and 
blood." 

" Moreover, I insist that there were several doctrines which prevailed in 
the first ages of Christianity that could not be grounded on any other authority 
of Scripture than this of John vi, as understood of the Eucharist, viz. — that 
by abstaining from the Holy Eucharist, Christians do incur the penalty of 
eternal damnation, — that the Holy Spirit is particularly present in the Eu- 
charist, — that the Eucharist conveys to all worthy receivers a principle of 
happy immortality." — Johnson. 

"The ancients knew," adds the same writer, "that our Saviour there 
spoke of the Eucharist, and they did by no means believe that Christ in the 
Holy Sacrament feeds the souls of men with mere dry metaphors or cata 
chreses. Though they did not understand Christ in a literal sense, as the 
Capernaites did, yet neither, on the other hand, did they suppose that it was 
the intention of Christ to puzzle his auditors, and even stagger his own disci- 
ples, with strained enigmatical sayings, — for they believed he spoke of a real 
mystery ; and that he was now opening his intention of establishing the most 
divine Sacrament of his Flesh and Blood, and to raise in them just thoughts 
and apprehensions of that heavenly Mystery, he speaks of it in the most ele- 
vated words." 

Page 53. 

CONNEXION BETWEEN THE EUCHARIST AND THE MYSTERY OF THE 
INCARNATION. 

" The difficulties," says the Rev. Mr. Rutter, " which Protestants allege 
against Transubstantiation are not greater than those which the Socinians 
may and do urge against the Incarnation : as will appear from the following 
parallel : — 

Protestants reject Trans ubstantia- The Socinians may equally reject the 
tion. Incarnation. 

1. Because the senses judge the host 1. Because the senses judge Christ 
to be mere bread. to be a mere man. 

2. Because one body will be in two 2. Because one person will be in two 
or more places. natures. 

3. Because the same body will move 3. Because the same person will be 
and not move, be visible and not both God and man, visible and not 
visible, mortal and immortal, pas- visible, mortal and immortal, pas- 
sible and impassible. sible and impassible, &c. 

1. Because Christ would be in the 4. Because an immense God would 

form of a wafer. be in the form of a simple man. 

5. Because Christ's body would be in 5. Because God would be in a form 

a form opposite to human nature. opposite to the divine nature. 
-J. Because Christ's body would be 6. Because God would be crucified 

eaten by sinners. by sinners. 

?. How can Christ's body be con- 7. How can Christ be confined in 

fined in the tabernacle, and be also the womb of a virgin, and be also 

in heaven ? in heaven ? 

8. Because it appears absurd to adore 8. Because it appears absurd to adore 

Christ in the sacrament. him who was born of a woman., and 

afterwards crucified by man 

* 22* 



258 



NOTES. 



Page 56. 

" St.. Justin, in afhrming that Christians were, in his time, instructed that 
the Bread and Wine were the Flesh and Blood, and that they were made so 
by Prayer, must intend something more than naked types ; for there is no 
occasion for Prayer, or for the Divine Concurrence, toties quoties, to render 
any thing a resemblance of another ; and 1 dare say that the Arminians and 
Socinians will bear witness that nothing but breaking the bread and pouring 
out the wine is necessary to make the elements the Body and Blood in theii 
spnse, who believe them to be nothing more than mere memorandums."— 
Johnson. 

Page 56. 

In his Homily on the 10th chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, 
v. 16, 17, St. Chrysostom says, "The Apostle speaks so as to make us believe 
and tremble, for he asserts, that what is in the cup is that which flowed out 
of Christ's side, and of this we partake." In referring to this passage, John- 
son pertinently asks, " What is there in a Type to make a man tremble ?" 

Page 63. 

A curious testimony to the strictness with which, on the subject of the 
Eucharist, the Discipline of the Secret continued to be observed even in the 
Fourth Century, is to be found in the arguments brought forward by Dey- 
lingius against Peiresc, on the subject of a coin of Constantine the Great, 
discovered by the latter, upon which he had persuaded himself he could trace 
the figure of an altar, bearing on it the Eucharistic wafer, or Host. Deylingius, 
a fierce opponent of the Sacrifice of the Mass, and therefore interested in 
getting rid of all proofs of its antiquity, contended, and I believe with truth, 
(as far as the coin was concerned,) that the round figure which Peiresc took 
for the Host was but the common emblem of the "globus mundi," — that, at 
the time when the coin was struck, Constantine had not yet been baptized, 
and could therefore know nothing of the Eucharist ; and that even had he 
known of it, the rules of the Discipline of the Secret would have prevented 
his revealing to the Pagans any thing connected with such a mystery. 

Page 72. 

" Testimonies of the Fathers respecting the Eucharist." 

To these extracts, on the subject of the Eucharist, I shall venture to add a 
few more which seem to have escaped the notice of my friend, and for which 
1 am indebted to the invaluable work of the Rev. Mr. Berington, " The Faith 
of Catholics." 

Origen. — "In former times, Baptism was obscurely represented in the 
cloud and in the sea, but now regeneration is in kind, in water and in the 
Holy Ghost. Then, obscurely, manna was the food ; but now, in kind, the 
flesh of the Word of God is the true food; even, as he said, ' My flesh is meat 
indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.' " — Horn. 7. in JVwm. 

St. Jlmbrose. — " If Heretics deny that adoration should be paid to the myste- 
ries of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, they may read in the Scripture, that 
the Apostles also adored him, after he had risen again in a glorified body." 
He then speaks of 11 the very flesh of Jesus Christ, which, to this day, we adore 
in our sacred mysteries.'''' (Gluam hodie quoque in mysteriis adoramus.) 

St. Gaudentius. — " Believe what is announced to thee ; because what thou 
receivest is the body of that celestial bread, and the blood of that sacred vine ; 
for when he delivered consecrated bread and wine to his disciples, thus he 
siiid, 4 This is my body, this is my blood.' Let us believe him, whose faith we 
profess ; for truth cannot lie." — Tract. II, de Pasch. 

St. Gregory of Nyssa. — "It is by virtue of the benediction that the nature 
of the visible* species is changed into his body. The bread, also, is at first 
common bread, but when it has been sanctified it is called, and is made the 



NOTES. 



259 



body of Christ. T77 t>?j ev\oyias Swapa npos ckuvo utraaTOi^zioiaai twv (paivo 
— Or at. in Bapt. Christi. 
Before those heretical notions which prevailed, respecting the Trinity and 
the Real Presence, had rendered it necessary, in speaking of these mysteries, 
to employ a word denoting actual substance, the Fathers of the Church em- 
ployed a variety of terms to describe the change which takes place in the 
Eucharist. Meroaroixct^is is, we see, the phrase used in the passage just 
cited, by Gregory of Nyssa. In Theophylact we find Merairot/jo-tj employed 
for the same purpose, and the different words Mfira/?oX>7, Mera^^artajuoj, 
M.eTappvdjjna-ii, Meraa-Kevaafjios, have each been used, by some one or other of 
the Fathers, to express the miraculous change. When the Phantastic here- 
tics, however, had begun to spiritualize away the reality of the Presence, and 
the opposers of the Trinity to resolve into mere concord and consent the 
mysterious Oneness of the Father and Son, it became necessary for the 
orthodox to assert the substantiality in both mysteries ; and hence the intro- 
duction of those two words, equally unauthorized by Scripture — Consub- 
stantial and Tr an substantiation. 

Page 73. 

In the Liturgy used by St. Cyril of Jerusalem we find the sense both ol 
himself and his Church expressed — UapaKaXov^v rov <pi\avQpu>itov Oeov to ayiov 
TTvevjm E^aTTOsrstXai ari ra irpoKtmeva Iva noirjar) top fiev aprov auijia Xptarou rov Ss 
oivov aijta Xptarov' navrios yap 'ov av etyaipaiTO to ayiov Trvevfia tovto riytajrai koli 
utTapePXriTai. "We beseech of God, the lover of souls, to send down his 
Holy Spirit upon these gifts laid in open view, that he may make the bread 
the body of Christ, and the wine the blood of Christ. For, to whatever the 
Holy Ghost gives a contact, that thing is consecrated and changed." 

Page 77. 

" The special selection by the Christians of those Days for Festivals," 
"On voit par le Calendrier de Bucherus et par d'autres que les Romains 
avoient le 25 Decembre une fete marquee Dies Invicti, en l'honneur du retour 
'du Soliel. Elle se faisait avec de grandes rejouissances. Ce fat apparem- 
ment pour s'opposer a la licence de cette Fete que l'Eglise Romaine placa en 
ce meme jour celle de la naissance de Jesus Christ. De meme qu'on institua 
la procession du jour de S. Marc, pour l'opposer a celle que faisoient les 
Paiens ce meme jour 25 Avril, en l'honneur du Dieu Rubigo, et les lumi- 
naires de la fete de la Purification tout de meme." — Longuerae. 

On comparing my friend's account of the numerous instances in which the 
early Christians borrowed from Paganism, with the famous Letter of Mid- 
dleton, in which the same task is, with a very different object, undertaken, 
the reader will perceive how meagre and limited were Middleton's inquiries 
on the subject. 

Page 84. 

The following is the grave and matter of fact language in which Luther de- 
scribed his theological controversy with the Devil : — " Contigit me semel sub 
mediam noctem subito expergefieri. Ibi Satan mecum csepit ejusmodi dis- 
putationem. Aude" inquit, Luthere, doctor perdocte. Nocte etiam te quin- 
decim annis celebrasse massas privatus pene quotidie ? Q,uod si tales massae 

rivatae horrenda esset idololatria ? Cm rcspondi, sum unctus sacerdos . . . 

aec omnia feci ex mandato et obedientia majorum l haec nosti. Hoc inquit, 
totum est verum ; sed Turcae et Gentilis etiam faciunt omnia in suis tem- 
plis ex obedientia. In his angustiis, in hoc agone contra Diabolum volebum 
retundere hostem armis quibus assuetus sum sub papatu, &c. Verum Satan 
e contra, fortius et vehementius instans, age, inquit, prome ubi scriptum est 
quod homo impius possit consecrare, &c. &c. Haec fere erat disputationis 
summa." — De Unct. et Mis. Privat. 

Chillingworth supposes that the intention of Satan in arguing against the 
Mass was to induce his antagonist to persevere in saving it. (Relig. of Prot.) 



260 



NOTES. 



Page 89. 

"My flesh tohich I will give for the Life of the world." 

"Nor are we to wonder if Christ made something else besides Faith and 
obedience to the moral laws necessary to eternal salvation. Man, even in 
Paradise, had a positive Law given him, over and above the Laws of Nature 
and of Reason, namely, that he should not eat of the fruit of the Tree of Good 
and E\il. If he had even obeyed in this, he could not have attained eternal 
happiness without eating the Tree of Life, — to show that eternal Life and 
perfect obedience are two things that have no necessary dependance on each 
other. For the same reason he hath required Christians not only to believe 
and obey in other respects, but, in order to secure ourselves a happy resur- 
rection, he directs us to feed on the Bread of Life, the Holy Eucharist. For, 
by making this a necessary condition, without which we cannot attain im- 
mortal happiness, he gives us a demonstration that Eternal Life is the gift of 
God, and not the wages of our righteousness and obedience. When there- 
fore our Saviour says, 'He that believethin me hath eternal life,' the meaning 
is, not that Faith alone is sufficient to salvation, but that a true believer, by 
being a member of Christ's Church and enjoying the Eucharist, has the means 
of eternal life provided for him by Christ Jesus, as Adam, by living in Para- 
dise, and having the Fruit of the Tree of Life within his reach, might be said 
to have eternal life ; and it is very observable how unanimous the ancient 
writers of the Church are, not only in asserting that this Sacrament is neces- 
sary to Salvation, but that it is the means by which our bodies have a prin- 
ciple of a happy resurrection conveyed to them." — Johnson. 

Page 91.— JVote. 

" But the Sacrament was an institution perfectly new and unheard of be- 
fore, when our Saviour first administered it, in the opinion of those who deny 
John vi to relate to this matter. It therefore must be supposed that our 
Saviour did extempore institute and oblige his Apostles to receive the Sacra- 
ment without giving them any previous notice or information whereby they 
might be prepared for it, — unless it be acknowledged that here, in this con- 
text, he did give them this notice ; for we have not the least intimation of his 
doing so in any other place of the Histories of the Evangelists. And, there- 
fore, to acquit our Saviour of any such imputation, it ought in reason to be 
acknowledged that he did it here ; and that St. John, observing that the other 
Evangelists had omitted this discourse, thought it necessary to be inserted in 
his Gospel ; whereas the history of the Institution being related by the other 
three, there was no occasion for him to repeat it." — lb. 

Page 100. 

" To show how opposite were the characters of the Jeicish and the Christian God." 

"The difference between the style of the Old and New Testament is so 
yery remarkable, that one of the greatest sects in the primitive times did, 
upon this very ground, found their heresy of Two Gods ; the one evil, fierce, 
and cruel, whom they called the God of the Old Testament; the other good, 
kind, and merciful, whom they called the God of the New Testament. So 
great a difference is there between the representations which are made ot 
God, in the Books of the Jewish and Christian religions, as to give, at least, 
some color and pretence for an Imagination of two Gods." — Tillotson. 

Page 109. 

In giving an account of the Carpocratians, another branch of these Gnos- 
tics, the author of L'Histoire du Gnosticisme, says : — " C'est la Gnosis, c'est 
la science des Carpocratiens qui donne cette science. Ce n'est pourtant ni 
une science nouvelle ni une science exclusive ; elle a 6te donnee a. tous les 
peuples, ou plutot les grands hommes de tous les peuples ont pu s'elever 
jusqu'a elle — Payens ou Juifs, Pythagore, Platon, Aristote, Moise et Jesus 



BOTES. 



261 



Christ ont possede cette gnosis, la Verite- Cette Gnosis affranchit des loia 
du monde (H aXndeia eXevOepwau ifjtas) — elle fait plus; elle affranchit de tout 
ce que le vulgaire appelle Religion." In a note, the author adds : — " Voila 
une ecole meprisable qui proclame il y a seize siecles l'Universalisme le plus 
philosophique et le plus religieux que connaisse notre terns." 

Page 110. 

" The Gnostics forerunners of the Jlnabaptists," fyc. 
Of the Carpocratians, the historian of Gnosticism says, "Tout ce que les 
docteurs orthodoxcs appeloient les bonnes &uvres ils le traitoient de choses 
*Jxt£ricures, indifferentes .... C'est par la foi et sans les ceuvres que les 
orthodoxes se recommendaient a cote d'elles." The similarity between these 
fanatics and the ravers of the Reformation, did not escape the observation of 
this writer. " Rien," he says, " ne nous parait plus propre a faire juger 
les Carpocratiens de la Cyrenaique que les anabaptistes de Munster." 

Page 167. 

In the sermons published by the Executors of Dr. Crisp, one of the founders 
of Antinomianism in England, it is asserted, (on the authority of the text, 
He hath made him to be sin for us,") that Christ was actually Sin itself 

Page 183. 

" Dispositions of Luther towards the Jews." 

" Severam deinde sententiam adversus eos promit, censetque, synagogas 
illorum funditus destruendas, domos quoque diruendas, libros precationum 

et Talmudicos omnes immo et ipsos sacros codices Veteris Testa- 

menti, quia illis tarn male utuntur, auferendos, &c. &c. — Seckendorf. Comm. 
de Luth. lib. 3, sect. 27. 

Such was the tolerance of this champion of Private Judgment. ! Even 
Seckendorf thinks it right to affix a brand of disapprobation to such senti- 
ments : — " Acria haec sunt, et quae approbationem non invenerunt." 

Page 191. 

The ministers of Geneva, in their Declaration in ans»ver to D'Alembert's 
Article Geneve, in the Encyclopedic, said that they had for Jesus Christ 
"plus que du respect." 

Page 195. 
" Negative code of Christianity." 
" The greatest unity the Protestants have, is not in believing, but in not 
>elieving ; in knowing rather what they are against than what they are for ; 
lot so much in knowing what they would have, as in knowing what they 
A - ould not have. But let these negative Religions take heed they meet not 
A r ith a negative Salvation." — Marquis of Worcester' 1 's Paper, in his Conference 
jcith Charles I, at Ragland. 

Page 197. 

Boxhornius, the grandfather of the celebrated Marcus Zuerius, was also 
Due of those who gave up the Church for a wile, at the time of the Reforma- 
tion. " Lorsqu'il fut question," says Baillet, " de prendre une femme a la place 
ic son Breviaire, et de se rendre homines de qualite, il se dit de la Maison 
de Boxhorns, noblesse connue dans le Brabant." — Jlnti-Cuyckius. 

Page 201. 

As the almost incredible grossness of this scene, at the Black Bear, might 
well induce some suspicion as to my friend's fidelity in describing it, I think 
it right to extract the passage of Hospinian from which he has taken his ac- 
count : — " Tandem hinc inde multis inter ipsos permutatis sermonibus exacer- 
Dato utrinque animo Luthertis Carlostadium ut contra se publice scribat, invi- 
tat. Simul ex conoitato isto aninii fer vore aureum nummum extractum ex pera 



262 



NOTES. 



ipsi ofFcrt, inquiens, 'En accipe, et quantum potes animose contra me dimica» 
Age, vero, vergas in me alacriter.' Q.uod etsi recusaret primiim Carlosta- 
dius, et rem cognitioni piae permittendam moneret ac peteret, tandem, cum 
urgeretur, hunc aureum nummum accepturum se respondit, eumque omni- 
bus astantibus ostend°-is, dixit 'En, chari fratres, istud est signum et arrabo, 
quod potestatem accepenm contra doctorem Lutherum scribendi. Rogo ita- 
qus vos, ut ejus rei testes esse velitis.' Cumque aureum nummum marsu- 
pio suo recondidisset, Luthero manum in sponsionem pactae et susceptae 
contentionis porresit, pro cujus confirmatione Lutherus ipsivicissim haustum 
vini propinavit, adhortans eum, ne sibi parceret, sed quanto vehementius et 
animosius contra se ageret, tanto ilium sibi chariorem futurum." Hist. Sa- 
cram. Pars Altera, de prima origine Certaminis Sacramentarii. 

Hospinian adds, " Haec te, Christiane lector, fuerunt infelicissimi istius' 
Certaminis, quod ex pacto et sponsione susceptum, tot jam anhis Ecclesiam 
gravissime exercuit, infausta auspicia." 

Page 208. 

The following is a specimen of the views of Zanchius on this head : — 
Damus reprobos necessitate peccandi eoque et pereundi ex hac Dei ordina- 
tione constringi, atque ita constringi, ut neque aut non peccare et perire." — 
" We grant that reprobates are constrained by a necessity of sinning, and 
therefore of perishing through this ordination of God, and that they are con- 
strained in such a manner as to be unable to do otherwise than sin and 
perish." 

Page 217. 
" A provision for future changes, <$-c." 
This was entirely on the principle of the Socinians, of whose Catechism 
Mosheim says : — " It never obtained among them the authority of a public 
Confession or rule of faith ; and hence the Doctors of that sect were author- 
ized to correct and contradict it, or to substitute another form of doctrine in 
its place." 

Accordingly, in a subsequent Edition of this Catechism published by 
Crellius, Schlichtingius, and the Wissowatu, some parts were altered, and 
others corrected. 

Page 220. 

" Their Liturgie, (which began in the nonage reign of Edward VI, and, 
ifter some years' interruption, got stronger footing by an Act of Parliament 
n Glueen Elizabeth's day, and so was become almost, of fourscore years' 
prescription, half as old as one of our grandfathers) is decried, antiquated 
by the present Parliament, contemned by the people, and succeeded by a 
new thing called a Directory of four or five years' unquiet standing, which 
already begins to lose credit with its first acceptors." — Dr. Carter's Motives, 
#c, 1649. 

Page 225. 

It would appear that Antinomianism still flourishes, to a frightful extent, 
In England. Robert Hall, in one of his Sermons, says, " While Antinomi- 
anism is making rapid strides through the land, and has already convulsed 
and disorganized so many of our Churches." A recent writer, too, in speak- 
ing of Dr. Hawkins, who, like the founder of the English Antinomians, Dr. 
Crisp, belongs to the Church of England, says, " his books and converts have 
infected our churches as with a kind of pestilence, and are perverting the 
minds of multitudes within the pale of the establishment." — James on Dissent. 

Page 225. 

Few have laid open more powerfully than does the illustrious Grotius the 
baleful workings of the Calvinistic doctrine. His opponent, Rivetus, having 
complained that there was no longer the means of providing fit and proper 
ministers for the Consistories, Grotius remarks, that in the Churches of foi 



NOTES. 



263 



mer times, though there were not then so many nch people as among the 
followers of Rivetus, there was yet an abundant supply for all such pur- 
poses ; — the doctrine of imputed justice having not yet chilled their hearts 
to charity and good works: — "Cur ergo ilia necessaria nunc minus suppc- 
tunt? Gluia non docentur nunc ea de necessitate ac dignatione operum 
liberalitatis et misericordiae qua? ohm docebantur. Justitia imputata frigus 
injecit et plebi et plebis ducibus." — In Rivet. Jlpolog. Discuss. Of the doc- 
trine of Perseverance, Grotius truly says, " Nullum potuit in Christianismum 
induci dogma perniciosius quam hoc." He adds, " 1ST one of the ancients 
taught this doctrine ; none of them would have bonie its being taught" — 
Hoc nemo veterum docuit ; nemo docentem tulisset. — In Jlnimadv. pro suis 
ad Cassandrum notis. By Beza it was held that David 3 even when polluted 
with adultery and homicide, did not lose the Holy Spirit, nor the less con- 
tinue to be a man after God's own heart : — "Non desiit tamen tunc tempo- 
ris esse vir secundum cor Dei." 

Page 234. 

J'ai voulu indiquer comment les croyances Protestantes ont du disparoitre 

toutes, et laisser hi religion vacantes dans leurs contrees respectives 

J'ai la conscience intime d'avoir 6crit sans passion et je donne comme r£- 
sultat certain, d'apres mes recherches et mes meditations la disposition to- 
tale du Protestantisme. II n'y a r^ellement, plus de Lutheriens ni de Cal- 
vinistes : il n'y a plus de mystiques dans les rangs dcs Reformes ; il ne s'y 
trouve meme plus de Sociniens ; on n'y reconnoit qu'une masse de sentimens 
confus composes de raisonnemens et de sensations indefindes. 

Page 237. 

"Roman Catholics," says Plowden, "rejoice to find such honor done to 
their doctrine of submitting private to the Church's public interpretations of 
the Scriptures, when the Vigornian prelate (Hurd) puts St. Augustin's 
words to the Manichaeans into the mouth of his deceased friend (Warbur- 
ton) to strike dumb and confound some modern free interpreters of the Word 
• — ' Ye who believe what you will in the Gospel and disbelieve what you 
will, assuredly believe not the Gospel itself, but yourselves only.' " 

Page 23S. 

In addition to the difficulties thrown in the way of a clear understanding 
jf the Scriptures, by the incorrectness of translators, by false punctuation, 
kc. &c. are to be taken into account also such corruptions of the meaning of 
the text as may have arisen from design. Thus, in an edition printed in 
1666, the verse in Acts vi, 3, referring to the choosing of Deacons, stands 
thus, "Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest 
report, foil of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom ye may appoint over this 
business," instead of " ice may appoint," — an alteration intended, it is sup- 
posed, for the purpose of establishing the people's power, not only in electing 
but also ordaining their ministers. A misrepresentation of the meaning of 
Scripture, for a like covert purpose, occurs in the auarto Bible printed in 
Glueen Anne's time, 1708, where the heading or contents prefixed to the 149th 
Psalm run thus : " The Prophet exhorteth to praise God for his love to the 
Church and for that power which he hath given to the Church to rule the 
consciences of ??ien." This innovation on the edition of 1614, (where the 
heading is, "An exhortation to the Church to praise the Lord for his victory 
and conquest that he giveth Iris saints against all man's power") was sup- 
posed to have been introduced by the partisans of the Stuarts, for the pur- 
pose of sanctioning their arbitrary principles. 

Page 239. 

By no writer have the difficulties of expounding Scripture been set forth, 
with more alarming force, than by the great Jeremy Taylor himself, in the 
tollowing passage of his Liberty of* Prophesying : — " Since there are so many 



264 



NOTES. 



copies (of Scripture) vvyth infinite variations of reading ; since a various in- 
terpunction, a parenthesis, a letter, an accent, may much alter the sense ; 
since some places have divers literal senses, may have spiritual, mystical and 
allegorical meanings ; since there arc so many tropes, metonymies, ironies, 
hyperboles, proprieties and improprieties of language, whose understanding 
depends upon such circumstances that it is almost impossible to know the 

proper interpretation since there are some mysteries which, at 

the best advantage of expression, are not easy to be apprehended, and whose 
explication, by reason of our imperfection, must needs be dark and some- 
times unintelligible ; and, lastly, since these ordinary means of expounding 
Scripture, as searching the originals, conference Qf places, parity of reason, 
analogy of faith, are all dubious, uncertain and very fallible, he that is the 
wisest and by consequence the likeliest to expound truest, in all probability 
of reason will be very far from confidence, because every one of these, and 
many more, are like so many degrees of improbability and incertainty, all 
depressing our certainty of finding out truth in such mysteries and amidst 
so many difficulties." — Liberty of Prophesying, sect. 4. 

Yet this is the Book, so awfully beset with difficulties, which those ineffa- 
ble blockheads of the Second Reformation, in Ireland, the * * s, * * s, &c, 
would throw open, by wholesale, to the indiscriminate perusal of the multi- 
tude! 

Page 239. 

" St August. Lib. de Hseres. numbereth ninety several heresies (so many 
Reformations were they) sprung up between Christ's time and his — i. e. in 
about four centuries. So many more rose between St. Augustin's days and 
Luther's — i. e. one hundred and eighty heresies in fifteen hundred years. 
Betwixt Luther's apostacy from St. Austin's rule and defection from the 
Catholic Church in 1517and the year 1595, (which is but an interval of sev 
enty-eight years) modern authors, Staphilus, Hosius, Prateolus, and others, 
do reckon two hundred and seventy new sects, all Reformations of what was 
some days or some hours before." — Dr. Carter's Motives, fyc. 

Page 240. 

The Protestant Episcopius was at least consistent when, from his per- 
suasion of the fallibility of ail modern translations, he insisted that all sorts 
of persons, laborers, sailors, women, &c, ought to learn Hebrew and Greek. 

Page 240. 

" Obscurity in the meaning of Scripture." 
In speaking of what are called plain texts, which, as he alleges, all parties 
claim on their side, and much wonder that their adversaries can mistake their 
meaning, an acute sceptical writer says, "The plain texts, from St. Austin's 
days, at least in the West, were all in favor of Predestination, and upon 
those plain texts the Articles of our Church and all other Protestant Churches 
were founded. It is true in Queen Elizabeth's time there were some few 
among the inferior Clergy for Free- Will ; but then those 'incorrigible Free- 
will men,' as they were called, were, by direction of the Bishops, sent to 

prison But since the Court in Charles the First's time helped to 

open the eyes of our divines, they, no longer blinded by their Articles, clearly 
see that all those plain texts are all for Free- Will." 



THE END. 



